During the clean 90 minute production, we see Serge (Rufus Sewell) buy a modernist painting, a white canvas with some white stripes across it, which becomes the nexus for a friendship breaking apart. Marc (Paul Ritter) rails against his friend's willingness to spend a small fortune on such a painting, and Yvan (Tim Key) gets caught between them.
'A man buys a painting: his friends don't like it,' seems a dull premise for a piece of theatre, but this production of Art proves more funny than it has any right to be. The sharp dialogue and brilliant comic timing give the piece serious pace, and the audience appeared to whole-heartedly buy into the world of the play. By the time the action came to a crescendo, the tension in the auditorium was incredible, especially for a narrative in which very little actually happens.
In terms of what builds the play, there isn't much to discuss in terms of set - a blank canvas, as it were - there is just a great script brought to life by a trio of talented actors. Sewell and Ritter's cynical intellectualism versus Key's hysteria builds comedy that, though absurd, steers clear of slapstick. The quality of the writing-in-translation, courtesy of Christopher Hampton, is gloriously barbed.
Taking the play in context, when you consider the nature of the work immediately preceding Art, and look at what will happen later in the season, you cannot help but have admiration for Matthew Warchus' brave and diverse programming at the Old Vic. He seems to have gone from strength to strength as an Artistic Director, and I, for one, am looking forward to Woyzeck, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in 2017.
The Old Vic until 18th February
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