The art of humour Author: Colin Rose Date: 18/04/1999 Publication: Sun Herald What's a bit of contentious modern art between friends? Plenty, reports Colin Rose. ART Theatre Royal SERGE (Geoff Morrell) is the proud owner of a recently acquired and very expensive work of minimalist, abstract art. He can't wait to show it off to his friends Marc (Tom Conti) and Yvan (David Wenham). But Marc is derisive. He can't believe Serge paid a small fortune for a "white painting tarted up with a few off-white stripes", as he dismissively describes it. Yvan sits on the fence. He's not all that keen on the painting himself, but as he says of Serge: "If it makes him happy" then what's the problem? Yasmin Reza's comedy ART is less a debate about the value of modern art than it is about the value of mateship. Like the white-on-white painting that sets in motion ART's bloody bout of three-sided back-stabbing, the premise is deceptively simple: is it possible to tell a mate exactly what you think of him if you think he's a chump? The painting, glowing blankly from the wall of Serge's apartment, is the screen onto which each of ART's characters projects his doubts about their fraternity. Marc can't understand Serge's behaviour. Are they, then, incompatible? Has their 15-year- old friendship been a mistake? The French author - in a lucid translation by British playwright Christopher Hampton - has wittily captured the point at which the everyday give and take of friendship tips over into some spiteful truth-telling. When the joke about the painting goes too far, each one of them is accused by the others of having lost his sense of humour. Serge thinks ownership of the painting, his taste and money in other words, is a passport to fashionable society. Marc thinks he's intellectually superior to the others, boasting that "culture is something I absolutely piss on". And Yvan seldom thinks of anyone but himself and his matrimonial woes. Marc and Serge's relationship degenerates into an amusing slanging match, with the always ambivalent Yvan (Marc calls him "spineless" and an "amoeba") caught in the cross-fire. Tom Conti is excellent. He pulls off a neat trick in ART by making Marc impossibly big-headed but nonetheless urbane and charming. Geoff Morrell's stony-faced Serge is an object lesson in deadpan humour. David Wenham is too young for the role of Yvan by at least 10 years. Wenham is a fine actor but he's not middle-aged: he's found his character's jitteriness but not the pathos of a man clutching at a few last straws. On opening night the three actors weren't quite in sync. Rachel Kavanaugh's direction follows the template of the London production directed by Matthew Warchus. ART is a funny play which flatters the audience's intelligence by indulging the mischievously reactionary notion that, as Marc puts it, we've been "taken in by modern art". Does Serge sacrifice the painting for the sake of his friendship? The answer may give you pause for thought - it'll certainly make you laugh. Art is playing in Sydney until June, then touring nationally.