photos: *Art* at Interplayers

March 11-27 at Interplayers
by Yasmina Reza
directed by Reed McColm
starring Jack Bannon as Marc, Patrick Treadway as Yvan and Roger Welch as Serge

premiered in Paris in 1994, in London in 1996, and in New York in 1998
Won the Tony for Best Play in '98
has been translated into 30 languages
last produced at Interplayers nine years ago this month, in March 2001 -- directed by Joan Welch and with a set by Jason Laws; starring Michael Weaver as Serge, Peter Murray as Marc, and Steven L. Barron as Yvan

Serge buys a white painting (with a few white lines on it) for 200,000 francs. He's quite proud of it.
His best friend Marc, nonplussed, can't quite believe that his friend has done such a stupid thing.
Their insecure friend Yvan, who has family and upcoming-wedding problems of his own, gets caught in the crossfire.
What's more important — friendship, or principles of aesthetics?
Would a real friend insist that you should like (and dislike) everything he likes (and dislikes)?

from a 3/8/01 review of the Interplayers production by some guy named Bowen:
Playwright Yasmina Reza welcomes you to a dramatic world where men spout beliefs they don't really feel in order to achieve a supremacy they don't really want.
After all, when a man loathes what his friend loves -- that all-white painting again -- what is he to do? Ultimately, "Art" suggests that sometimes we should just accept our friends' opinions, even if -- especially if -- those beliefs violate our own private criteria for good taste.
.... Like Serge and Marc in the play, we project onto our friends the traits we insist they should have. These are the traits, we like to think, that we ourselves have placed there.
[ a mostly positive review, with some criticisms of each of the actors and of the directing ]