Art
Last Update 05-Mar-2008
by - Yasmina Reza Translated by Christopher Hampton
From 7th to 12th May 2007
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Presented by - Nonentities (A)Location - Main HouseStandard Ticket PricesCurtain Up 7.30pm |
Yasmina Reza’s comedy has entertained audiences since it was first presented in 1994 and must be one of the most seen non musical plays of recent years. We find that Serge has just indulged his penchant for modern art by buying a large, expensive and almost blank white painting. Marc is horrified, and their relationship suffers considerable strain. Yvan is caught in the middle, trying to please and mollify each of them in turn. A witty and intelligent exploration of the complexities of friendship. |
Art won the Olivier and Evening Standard awards for best comedy in London, the Tony award for best play in New York and the Moliere award in the author’s native France.
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The full programme is available |
Production Notes:
Serge has bought a modern painting for a huge sum of money. Marc hates it and cannot believe that any friend of his could possibly like such a work. Yvan tries unsuccessfully to placate both sides ……
Art was first produced in 1994 at the Comedie des Champs Elysees in Paris. Sean Connery saw it there on his wife’s advice, and liked it so much that he decided to back an English-language production. He and co-producer David Pugh commissioned Christopher Hampton to translate the script, and it is that version that has been a “rave” success, all round the English-speaking parts of the globe – including Canada, Australia and the United States. The London production won an Olivier award for Best Play and an Evening Standard award for Best Comedy – seemingly inevitably a “Tony” was duly awarded to the New York version.
In view of this world-wide professional success, and in the surely reasonable supposition that anyone interested in the play must surely have already seen the Englishlanguage“original”, or one of the sell-out-successful touring versions, how does any amateur team approach the play?
In our case the answer is “with considerable trepidation”! True, the text affords the cast the relish of using scintillating dialogue and the luxury of virtually unfettered interpretation. However, we are told little of the background of the three men, how they came to be friends – or even if the current crisis in their friendship is merely one of many similar events, though perhaps prompted by a different cause. In our background work, we have therefore tried to understand what makes the men tick, and through this to discover what is the real basis of their friendship, and of their current dispute. We have inevitably had to try and understand the central dilemma of the conflict between the “shock of the new” and the tested appeal of the tried, trusted and traditionally familiar – a conflict perhaps as relevant in theatre as in the world of painting. Importantly, we have also had the purely technical challenge of presenting the host of “laugh lines” to ‘hopefully’ their best advantage.
The whole company hopes that our efforts meet with your approval….?