You won’t find a smarter, sleeker production of Yasmina
Reza’s award winning ART (translated by Christopher Hampton) than the one at
Arts After Hours (running through March 19th). Where is Arts After
Hours, you ask? It’s in Lynn,
a burb where the arts are flourishing. It’s worth the drive, as is the Peabody Essex
Museum (my favorite Massachusetts
museum), next door in Salem.
You could do both in the same day. Both are connected by Reza’s play.
ART is a fast little comedy-with-drama which pits three
friends of longstanding against each other because of a painting: a seemingly
all white canvas which the most prosperous of the three has purchased for
$200,000. If you’re thinking The Emperor’s New Clothes, so is the
collector’s best friend… and he says so in no uncertain terms. And as you might
have guessed, the collector takes great umbrage.
So, do you support your friends even when you think they’ve
embarked on a fool’s errand? Do you question their judgment? That conundrum is
at the heart of the play—as is
the age old argument about what exactly makes something “art.” Marcel Duchamp
challenged preconceptions of “what art is” by presenting a “ready made” toilet
at an exhibition in 1917. Kasimir Malevich’s 1918 “white on white” paintings
(the inspiration for the artwork in Reza’s play) certainly took abstract
painting to great lengths to achieve “purity of form.”
Director Fran Weinberg’s production is fiercely intelligent,
with three remarkable actors seamlessly inhabiting their roles. Anthony Mullin
makes the collector elegant and arrogant, the kind of man who never makes a
mistake. (Of course, when he realizes that he has, it’s all the more satisfying
for the audience.) Jason Myatt gives an extraordinary performance as the friend
who can’t hide his contempt for the painting, and therefore, for its proud new owner
despite a fifteen year friendship. When the fur flies and the collector hurls
insults back at him, Myatt shows us he’s wounded to the core, his face registering
genuine shock, hurt and even surprise.
Thomas Grenon has the plum role of the reluctant mediator,
the guy who just wants everyone to get along. Try as he might to intercede, he
fails so brilliantly that he himself becomes the target of their wrath. Grenon
has a hilarious monologue about the women who are tormenting him nonstop over
wedding plans, portraying first his nasty, disagreeable mother, then his
domineering, unrelenting fiancé. Poor man, there’s no peace even with his
friends. He can’t find respite anywhere.
William Endslow’s revolving wall makes scene changes effortless.
The director deliberately calls attention to them by having the actors notice
the new incoming wall—which
translates to even more delightful humor when the collector spies an
encroaching, inferior painting. Jeff Gardiner’s evocative lighting makes the
inexpensive painting appear garish (at least to me as a fan of abstract art)
and guides us to the characters’ inner thoughts. All the elements in Weinberg’s
production conspire to sculpt a lovely, thoughtful work of ART.
