Review by Tom Keatinge
tomkeatinge@hotmail.com
Tom Keatinge Web site
Feb 02

Art (currently playing at the Whitehall Theatre in its latest incarnation), is one of those plays that I happily revisit, which is lucky really, as my recent visit was my fourth helping. It is not that the plot is so deep that one always discovers new insights; rather it is the curiosity to see how the latest cast handles the parts. This was all the more the case on my last visit as Barry Foster who had been playing the part of Marc had sadly died from a heart attack, just days earlier. Yet despite this cloud that, no doubt, hung over the remaining two and Foster’s understudy, this was another highly entertaining evening.

The plot is famously simple: Serge buys painting for 200,000 Francs; Marc finds painting extraordinarily wasteful (who wouldn’t, after all, two hundred grand for a 5ft x 4ft entirely white canvass seems a bit steep, even in Francs), and tells Serge as such directly; Yvan ever the diplomat or spineless wimp (depending on your view) tries to mediate, and incurs wrath of his friends in the process. And so it goes…

But for me, whilst the plot is entertaining and surprisingly thought provoking in its examination of the deconstruction of longstanding friendships, it is the casting that always interests me. This time around Nigel Havers plays Serge the new owner of (in his eyes) the inspirational white rectangle. Charming and as smooth as ever, he is supremely believable in his indulgence. Yvan is played by Roger Lloyd Pack who is (and he probably hates this) best known as the put-upon Trigger from Only Fools and Horses, making him all the more credible as the butt of his friends’ ire, and Paul Freeman the perfect understudy as the angry and infuriated Marc for whom Serge’s painting is the ultimate in fatuous and wasteful indulgence.

Whether or not Yasmina Reza purposefully confined her play to one, 90 minute sprint to accommodate the short attention span and shrinking bladders of today’s theatre-going audience, I don’t know, but I always marvel at the way in which Art comes to its climax just as the audience is about to stampede for the exits.

Always fun, and always marvellously cast, Art deserves to be the comedic institution it has become.

Tom Keatinge
tomkeatinge@hotmail.com
Tom Keatinge Web site