‘Art’

Princeton Summer Theater’s final play looks at why people remain friends.

By: Janet Stern

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Daniel Kublick, Robert Walsh and Andy Hoover are three friends in Princeton Summer Theater’s Art.


   One of the pleasures of attending Princeton Summer Theater’s productions each year is anticipating how the company’s actors will reinvent themselves in each play to bring their characters vividly to life. In an astonishingly short time, the audiences see them in widely varying roles. By the time the final play opens in August, we regard the actors as old friends.
   How appropriate, then, that the last offering this season is the popular 1994 French comedy-drama Art, a wryly observed and swiftly paced dissection of a friendship.
   Theatergoers who know nothing about "art" should not be deterred from seeing Art. This play would not have been performed in more than 20 languages if it were solely an investigation into the aesthetics of abstraction versus classicism. Its universal appeal stems, rather, from its attentiveness to the facets of friendship: Why do people remain friends? Because of past shared experiences? Because the relationship has become comfortable or convenient? Because having friends is preferable to the loneliness that envelops us without them?
   In the case of the three self-absorbed friends in Yasmina Reza’s Tony-award winning play, one man’s decision to "set himself apart" results in previously undisclosed resentments that ultimately cause the friends to wonder if they ever had anything in common at all.
   Art depicts their increasingly embittered relationship after Serge, a dermatologist, pays 200,000 francs for a 5-by-4-foot painting that is, simply, white (though Serge quickly points out its "fine white diagonal scars"). Mirroring his medical specialty, Serge’s fragile appreciation of art is only skin-deep. He thus seeks validation from his old friend Marc but is instead affronted by Marc’s derision of his purchase and contempt for how much Serge paid for it.
   Marc is disappointed in and offended by his friend’s having spent a fortune on something Marc doesn’t even consider art. Sensing that Serge’s admiration of him has been supplanted by a new idol ("You said ‘deconstruction’ without a trace of irony," he accuses Serge), Marc seeks validation, in turn, from their mutual friend, Yvan.
   Yvan, who admits to having no opinions about anything, is confused and distressed by the rift in the friendship. Desperate to appease both men, he finds himself in the middle of the dispute, but it is his own "artlessness" that incites his friends ultimately to turn on him.
   Performed in 90 minutes with no intermission, Art has been called "slender" and minimalist, like the painting at its center. PST’s production acknowledges that it is not the story that matters but the way it is told. Never is the comedy weighed down by gravity of purpose. Hilarious but biting dialogue, the precision of the characters’ interactions, their proclivity for picking apart each other’s words until clichés become recriminations ("As far as I’m concerned" and "masterpiece" are just two of the expressions that are attacked) — all constitute dazzling opportunities for gifted actors.
   Robert Walsh as Serge reveals his vulnerability and insecurity. But when confronted by Marc’s judgmental comments, he becomes gradually and convincingly vicious. When Yvan breaks down late in the play, Walsh endures it with a subtle glibness that verges on cruelty, although it is not clear whether this is because Serge has witnessed similar episodes before.
   We all recognize the snide, hypercritical Marc, embodied remorselessly by Daniel Kublick portraying the most unwholesome aspects of the male bond. Interestingly, though Art was written by a woman and this production was directed by a woman (the company’s versatile Shannon Lee Clair), it is difficult to imagine Marc’s dialogue being uttered by a woman.
   On the other hand, Yvan’s dialogue could be. Caught between his two friends ("There’s no reason to insult each other over a painting… " — though, of course, it isn’t about the painting) and agonized over his directionless life, Andy Hoover as Yvan elicits empathy from the audience but also provides its show-stopping moment, when he recounts a family squabble by impersonating in frenzied succession his conversations with various impossible relatives. An actor’s dream, this monologue showcases the character’s endearing qualities, and Hoover makes the most of it, though at other moments he seemed to have trouble refraining from laughing along with the audience.
   Subtle costuming by Heather May underscores Serge’s trendiness and Yvan’s vagueness. But Marc, dressed in black pants and white shirt — perhaps intended to emphasize his categorical attitudes — looks instead like he just returned from a long evening out.
   As the production’s set and light designer, Allen Grimm again evinces cleverness. One sleek living room transforms into the respective apartment of each character, depending on what painting the occupant hangs on the back wall: tacky flowers on Yvan’s, "pseudo-Flemish" landscape on Marc’s, and eventually the white canvas on Serge’s.
   Samuel Johnson wrote that "a friendship of 20 years is interwoven with the texture of life. A friend may be often found and lost, but an old Friend never can be found, and Nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost." Art plumbs the depths of old friendships, and PST’s remarkable season makes us long for the return of these particular old friends next summer.
Art continues at the Hamilton Murray Theatre, Princeton University Campus, Princeton, through Aug. 12. Performances: Thurs.-Fri. 8 p.m., Sat. 2, 8 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. Post-performance discussion, Aug. 10. Tickets cost $16-$18, $12-$15 seniors, $10 students; (609) 258-7062; www.princetonsummertheater.org