Seeing clearly turns out to be something of an art

Author: Paul McGillick
Date: 01/05/1999
Publication: The Financial Review

Art, by Yasmina Reza. Theatre Royal, Sydney until June 26. Then a national tour beginning with Melbourne and Adelaide. 

I have a T-shirt with the following words crossed out: sex, money, drugs. Underneath, it reads: art - the last vice. 
Affluent dermatologist and bachelor, Serge (Geoff Morrell), probably has one as well. The clue lies in the way he cheerfully 
parts with 200,000 francs to buy a white-on-white minimalist painting. 

It turns out that friendship might be added to the list of crossed-out words, because Serge's good friend, Marc (Tom Conti), 
is appalled by what his mate has paid for what he sees as 'a piece of shit'. 

Eventually, another mate, Yvan (David Wenham), turns up and is forced into the role of arbiter - a role for which the 
weak-willed and anxious Yvan is poorly equipped. The result is a painful process exposing all the compromises which 
friendship typically conceals. In the end, though, the friendship between the three men is all the stronger. Marc is able 
to respect Serge's apparently empty painting and all three have renewed respect for one another. As the French say: friends 
are people who have gone to war together. 

This 1995 play has been one of the theatrical phenomena of recent years. Ostensibly an arcane debate about the value of 
contemporary art, it has been a major hit all over the world. 

The play's real theme is friendship and relationships. To appreciate a painting you have to be able to see it clearly. 
Serge asks his mates whether they can see the subtle lines in his painting. Can they see the hints of colour beneath the 
surface? Dopey Yvan recounts a tortuous and apparently meaningless saying by his therapist which effectively tells us that 
if we cannot see our friends for what they are, not what we want them to be, then it is a phoney relationship. 

It is a wonderfully funny and dynamic play driving to an apparently inevitable resolution as the three friends set out on a 
ruthless deconstruction (a word which comes in for some stick) and reconstruction of their friendship. Casting is crucial 
and Morrell and Conti are perfect foils for one another. Wenham, however, seems a little uncomfortable as the stressed-out 
and rather disconnected Yvan. His manic monologue early on, with its litany of woes, is funny but seems more performed than 
felt. 

It symptomises a production which is very enjoyable but sometimes gets its rhythms wrong - delivering the laughs, but not 
always the knot in the stomach.