THE COLLABORATION
Young Vic until April 2 Tickets: 020 7922 2922
Once the most famous celebrity in the art world, Andy Warhol was never quite the same after being shot by former fan Valerie Solanas. His star declined as he became more paranoid and less prolific but young street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s was in the ascendant. The unlikely collaboration between the two is the framework for Anthony McCarten’s play.
Paul Bettany plays Warhol.
The blonde wig, the geeky spectacles and the dead white complexion are all present and correct. But Bettany’s Warhol goes far beyond the caricature of a man who became a caricature of himself.
He gets the languid, flattened drone of Warhol’s voice just right, as well as his louche yet tense posture and the cynical disingenuousness.
As Basquiat, Jeremy Pope has a supple, pantherish agility, bubbling with an energy he can hardly contain. Street smart and educated, he is contemptuous of Warhol’s work yet intrigued by the offer of collaboration which is engineered by their mutual agent Bruno Bischofberger (Alec Newman). He pitched it to the artists as a boxing match between an established heavyweight and a younger, fitter fighter.
The first half is set in Warhol’s neat, clinically spartan studio as he and Basquiat circle each other warily, trying to get the measure of the other’s skills.
They squabble over the purpose of art, and McCarten’s dialogue amusingly delineates their individual philosophies and personalities. As Warhol said: “We’re trying to make art, not sandwiches.” Warhol films Basquiat at work with the stealthy compulsion of the voyeur.
The second half is set in Basquiat’s deliriously messy studio, when a mutual friend is beaten up by cops and both artists reveal more of themselves as a result.
McCarten may not tell us anything we don’t already know but he does so in a vividly entertaining manner.