In Art the Play, a 20 year friendship faces its day of reckoning when one of them buys a very expensive essentially blank canvas. Imagine your friend of 20 years suddenly buys a piece of modern art for a ridiculous sum, and all you can see is a blank canvas. Would you tell them it was “shit”? That’s exactly what happens in Art which starts a downward spiral. An all-star Australian cast comprising Richard Roxburgh, Damon Herriman, and Toby Schmitz presents Yasmina Reza’s Art at Her Majesty’s Theatre, but only until Sunday.
Art is a French dark comedy play written by Yasmina Reza, and translated by Christopher Hampton. It first opened in Paris, in its native French at the Comédie des Champs-Élysées in Paris in 1994. The play then opened in London in 1996 and on Broadway in 1998 and has been making audiences laugh ever since.
Serge (Herriman), a dermatologist who has become fond of modern art is very proud of his latest purchase, a painting by the artist Antrios. He proudly shows it to his friend Marc (Richard Roxburgh), an engineer with no appreciation of modern art. Marc asks if it was expensive and who the artist is. He becomes incredulous that his friend could have spent such an exorbitant amount on it. Marc is not one to bite his tongue and so flows a no-holds barred diatribe.
However, instead of simply letting it go and moving on, the blank canvas becomes the lens through which their friendship will be examined. This expensive blank canvas is the catalyst for Marc’s world crumbling around him and the realisation that the friendship is not what it once was.
Yvan (Schmitz), their peace-making, fence-sitting friend, is a little like the child torn between divorced parents being pulled into their arguments and at times made the target of their anger. He goes between being an almost referee for their argument, and the direction of their anger. The first time we see Yvan, he is entering the room backwards, bum in the air, crouched down looking for a pen lid.
Expertly directed by Lee Lewis, Art sees Richard Roxburgh, Damon Herriman, and Toby Schmitz as the perfect cast for these three friends. We see similarities between Roxburgh’s biting wit in his character Marc in Art and the brilliant self-destructive barrister Cleaver he played in the TV show Rake (which first made us fall in love with Roxburgh). Both characters are incredibly impulsive and extremely incapable of pausing before speaking their mind.
All three actors deliver not only delightfully razor-sharp timing that lets Reza’s dialogue land with both bite and discomfort but also fantastically over the top physical performances. Roxburgh at times almost maniacally throwing his head and hands up and down exasperated, in disbelief. Watching Art is watching a masterclass in acting.
Left to Right:
Damon Herriman, Toby Schmitz, Richard Roxburgh
Damon Herriman. who was born and raised in Adelaide, has largely spent his career in US and Australian film and television but is no stranger to the stage, having started on the stage at the age of 8. His portrayal of Serge is perfect. He imbues him with controlled indignation, something which stands in stark contrast to the volatility of Marc.
Roxburgh has only ever performed in Adelaide once, in 1995, and it was pretty short-lived as he tore his anterior cruciate ligament on opening night in Hamlet which saw the rest of the season cancelled. So, to have him grace an Adelaide stage is an extra special treat.
Toby Schmitz, originally from Perth, is an actor who delighted us when we first discovered him in 2009 at Belvoir St Theatre’s upstairs production of Ruben Guthrie, which later went on to become a film (with Patrick Brammall in his role). His performance as Yvan is a delight, whether it be his physical performances or his lightning speed exasperated monologues about all the women in his life making his own life Hell.
While the play may have been first performed 32 years ago, there is little to date it. We could even use the words Serge speaks, which enrage Marc so much when he is talking about the book by Seneca “incredibly modern” to describe it. In this production Francs are replaced with Euros. The shock value of spending a lot on an essentially white canvas would still shock many today – even in a world where a banana duct-taped to a wall such as Maurizio Cattelan’s $6.2 million Comedian is considered art (even though it is in itself a commentary on the absurdity of the art market).
Art is a comedy that cuts sharply into masculinity and the fault lines of long-held male friendships. The painting may spark the conflict, but what it exposes runs far deeper. To see three of Australia’s finest actors share the stage in Adelaide feels like witnessing something rare— and something of a collector’s piece.
5 CROISSANTS
Matilda Marseillaise was a guest of TS Publicity (but loved it so much she bought tickets and went again!)
Read our interview with Damon Herriman about Art
