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Art
that's good whichever way you look at
it
Charles Spencer on the excellent
Art at Wyndham's
WHAT a terrific play Art is. When it opened
back in October 1996 I gave it a rave,
but entered the caveat that there "might
actually be less here than meets the delighted
eye and ear".
I couldn't have been more wrong. I've
just been for the third time and the play
seems as fresh, as funny, as touching
and as thought-provoking as it did the
first time round.
Though it offers cracking entertainment,
there is something poetic, even mysterious
about Yasmina Reza's superbly elegant
play, translated with vituperative wit
by Christopher Hampton. Like the white
painting that is the catalyst of the piece,
the drama seems to change subtly, depending
both on your own mood and on the particular
actors playing the three friends.
On both previous occasions I've ended
up sympathising with Serge, the nervy
dermatologist who forks out 200,000 francs
for the picture only to have it denounced
as "white s**t" by his best friend
Marc.
This time my sympathies moved the other
way. In a compellingly subtle performance,
Mick Ford makes Serge seem horribly creepy
and smug. There's something repellent
about the way he caresses his friend as
Marc first views the painting, something
insinuatingly sly about his manner throughout.
This is a man who needles people with
sadistic precision while sanctimoniously
claiming the moral high ground.
In contrast, that lovely and undervalued
actor Roger Allam plays the scornful
Marc with a wonderful mixture of warmth,
hurt and fury. He can be cruel, certainly,
and he is never more dangerous than when
he is silkily calm, but his is the cruelty
of a man who feels betrayed in friendship.
He also delivers the great lines pouring
scorn on the more absurd manifestations
of modern art with panache, like a younger,
sober Kingsley Amis. I felt like cheering.
Robust artistic conservatism has rarely
found a more eloquent spokesman.
The joker in the pack is Jack Dee, a marvellous
stand-up comic who is making his dramatic
debut as Yvan, the hapless third friend
who tries to broker peace between his
two friends, only to find himself caught
in the crossfire. Though he can't eclipse
memories of Ken Stott, who created the
role (but then, who could?), Dee is excellent.
He delivers the great set piece about
wedding invitations with a hilarious sense
of grievance (I particularly liked the
way he mimes a vicious kick at the mere
mention of his stepmother), and he is
touchingly vulnerable - not a word you
associate with this usually smart, snide
performer - as he watches his friendships
collapse around him. As you would expect,
his comic timing is immaculate, but there
is also a fine unforced sincerity here.
A legitimate stage career surely beckons
should Dee want it.
Matthew Warchus's production remains exemplary
- cool and chic on the surface (you won't
find more stylish stage or lighting design
anywhere), yet powered by surprisingly
raw emotion. Art is an outstandingly witty
play, to be sure, but in its analysis
of the dynamics of friendship, it is also
a work of satisfying subtlety and depth.
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The
play they all want to be in
Leading
actors fall over themselves to be in Art,
says Kate Bassett.
Now a stand-up comedian is joining them.
Why?
THREE Frenchmen sit around arguing over
the merits of a blank white canvas. It
hardly sounds like a West End crowd-puller.
Yet Art, by the Paris-based, half-Iranian,
half-Hungarian playwright Yasmina Reza,
has proved a long-running commercial hit
at Wyndham's Theatre. Translated by Christopher
Hampton, stylishly staged by Matthew Warchus
and co-produced by Sean Connery, this
show, which opened in London in 1996,
has been nominated for a record five Olivier
Awards and took the trophy for Best Comedy.
One of the reasons Art is still going
strong is its extraordinarily strong casting.
Warchus's production has attracted remarkably
high-calibre actors each time the line-up
has changed. Since the first, crowd-pulling
line-up of Tom Courtenay, Albert Finney
and Ken Stott, we've had Henry Goodman,
David Haig, Anton Lesser, Nigel Havers
and the RSC's Roger Allam, among
others.
Next week the fifth cast comes into play
and it features two interesting twists:
one celebrity stand-up, Jack Dee, making
his theatrical debut; and one actor coming
back for more - Allam taking on
a different role from last time round.
Dee started out as a waiter, swapped to
the stand-up circuit and became a household
name in 1992 when he landed his own Channel
4 show. Sharp-suited and with a bulldog
glower, he has appeared in award-winning
advertisements for John Smith's bitter,
and last year had a go at small-screen
comedy-drama in Granada's The Grimleys.
In stand-up, Dee's persona is abrasive
and deadpan. But in Art he will be playing
the harassed Yvan, who finds himself attacked
from both sides when he steps between
his older friends, Marc and Serge, in
a quarrel over the latter's purchase of
a modernist painting.
Yvan is not an easy first role. The character
feels a distress that is increasingly
severe, and has to inspire pathos. Dee
claims that he feels an affinity between
his off-stage self and Yvan. "I'm a disaster,"
he says. "Like him, I see everyone's point
of view and I'll agree with people just
because I hate conflict - unlike my stand-up
persona, who is more assertive."
The part of Yvan is also, of course, a
corker for any comedian, notably featuring
an extended rant about wedding arrangements.
Taking the part, though a challenge, struck
Dee as a great opportunity to learn about
acting. "I'm being offered more and more
acting roles in telly and wishing I had
more experience to tackle them. I felt
that if I did Art, going through this
process would stand me in good stead."
Allam, who played Serge in an earlier
run of the play, will now be portraying
Marc. "On the first day of rehearsals,"
says Allam, "I thought I'd made
the most appalling mistake. It was so
strange, standing looking at Mick Ford,
who was saying my lines."
However, Allam's role-swapping
makes sense if you perceive the characters
as facets of one personality. Warchus
tells me that Reza originally saw the
trio as different aspects of herself,
and his ultimate aim is to assemble a
cast who'll play the roles in rotation
(a concept he also explored in his staging
of Sam Shepard's True West in 1994).
Though Allam suspects that flicking
between all three parts would be extremely
demanding, the play certainly makes actors
want to try a second role. Lesser, Haig
and others have shown interest, says Warchus.
Dee is already open to the possibility:
"Were someone to ask if I fancied a crack
at one of the other parts, I'd be very
tempted." Meanwhile other major players
are queuing up. Warchus is rushing from
rehearsals to discuss the play with Richard
Griffiths over lunch.
Pragmatically speaking, this West End
production has enticed top actors by having
three-month runs rather than the usual
six months, which can interfere with screen
careers. In addition, all three parts
are gems for virtuoso performers and yet
offer a chance for leading actors to work
together closely on an equal footing -
"like a chamber orchestra," Allam
says, "rather than like a soloist with
orchestral support".
Obviously, though, the appeal of Reza's
play goes deeper than that. Dee has become
intellectually fascinated. "I could talk
about it all day," he says. The more you
view Art, the more depths you discern.
Warchus deliberately casts the play to
bring out complex, three-dimensional characters,
which is why, he says, Dee should make
an interesting Yvan.
"What would be totally wrong casting would
be a professional loser like Woody Allen.
What makes Yvan tragic is if he is good-looking,
fun, self-assured and his life is going
to hell."
In terms of its subtle depths, Reza's
play is comparable to Serge's white painting,
which he insists is not flatly monochromatic,
but is layered with distinguishable shades.
Art combines laughter, intellectual discussion
and intense feelings; literal meaning
and symbolic meaning. At times Marc and
Serge sound like a married couple; alternatively,
Warchus says, "you could see Marc and
Serge as two countries and Yvan as the
United Nations."
The play's appeal is certainly wide. It
has been staged everywhere from Sweden
to South Africa. Now Warchus is setting
off to rehearse an American cast (Alfred
Molina, Alan Alda and Victor Garber),
to open on Broadway in March.
Warchus expresses slight anxiety about
cultural differences, but thinks the original
French dialogue has a slangy rawness that
is very New York - and Reza, indeed, has
family connections there. "Perhaps, actually,
it will be a homecoming for the play,"
he says.
And after that? Warchus will be back in
London directing a second play by Reza,
called The Unexpected Man, which will
open at the Barbican Pit in April. Warchus
says this one is far less commercial,
more like an installation, with two performers
delivering 10 monologues.
Who will the actors be? Warchus says he's
going for Helen Mirren and Michael Gambon.
Sounds like another crowd-puller to me.
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