ART. Tour to 27 April.

Tour

ART
by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton

Runs: 1hr 45min No interval

Tour to 27 April 2002
Review Hazel Brown 19 March at Poole Arts Centre

A comic masterpiece where friendship is strained to its limits by the purchase of a picture.Delightful and entertaining, Art is a comic masterpiece. Serge has purchased a picture of which he is inordinately proud. It is a white canvas, with barely discernible lines and it cost a small fortune. His friend Marc is unsettled by this purchase. He does not understand it, not the painting itself, nor the reason for buying it. He almost regards it as an insult.

Ivan, the third and least successful of the three friends, bounces between the other two, trying to identify with both and smooth over the emerging cracks in the friendship.

By turns the alliances form and break up, as the friends turn on one another, airing grievances unspoken for years – Ivan's irritating tolerance, the obnoxious way Marc's girlfriend waves away cigarette smoke – and end in fights and tears.

Simon Shepherd is smoothly suave and irritating as the wealthy divorced dermatologist, Leigh Lawson lean and angst-ridden as the one who regards himself as the leader of the group in matters of taste.

Philip Franks' Yvan seizes the best comic moment of the play with both hands as he describes the fiasco of the arrangements for his forthcoming wedding. The denouement is delightful, but whether the friendship will survive is left open.

These are three quintessential Frenchmen. I find it hard to believe that three Englishmen would spend so much time and energy discussing art, life and friendship . . . football, possibly. Perhaps we are the poorer for that, but we do have this amusing play to prompt us to dwell on higher matters.

Marc: Leigh Lawson
Serge: Simon Shepherd
Yvan: Philip Franks

Director: Thea Sharrock
Designer: Mark Thompson
Lighting: Hugh Vanstone
Sound: Mic Pool
Composer: Gary Yershon

2002-03-04 02:44:32