Art

Pembroke New Cellars, 25th-29th October,7pm, £5-6

Dir. Freddie Tapner

[rating:4/5]

Art, or “Aaart”, as Rupert Grace’s conspicuously posh Marc drawls in his opening monologue, centres on a three-man friendship. But Bromance it certainly isn’t.

Marc (Rupert Grace), Serge (Edward Eustace) and Yvan (Matthew Clayton) don’t do what their equivalent, Seth-Rogen-penned triumvirate would. Instead of football, they play ‘with words’ – quibbling over phrases such as ‘read Seneca’, ‘the artist’ and ‘deconstruction’.

Even less stereotypically, they don’t spend a lot of time eating. Yes, there is some snack-related humour; Matthew Clayton’s Yvan’s olive eating is a comic highpoint. But, as the accordion music gently reminds us, the play is set à Paris: Marc, Serge and Yvan are too busy chewing on gristly topics such as ‘why do we spend time with each other when we hate each other?’ to think about supper.

The ‘trouble’ that the play addresses started with the purchase of a painting. When arty aeronautical engineer Serge spent two hundred thousand on a monochrome white canvas, Marc was appalled. And the third man, Yvan? Well, self-proclaimed amoeba that he is, just wants to keep everyone happy. But his attempts to please both sides only exacerbate matters.

The evening’s performance saw Yasmina Reza’s pithy comic script played out by capable hands. Although the initially awkward intimacy of the New Cellars meant that the first few funny lines passed in silence, the dexterity with which Rupert Grace attacked his opening soliloquy immediately allayed my fear of monologue, which always has the potential to be embarrassing.

The lanky Grace performed his role with confident aplomb. Condescendingly smug, his portrayal of Marc was both intensely dislikeable and very entertaining. Eustace, in a performance that similarly emphasized Serge’s intellectual snobbishness, has undeniable stage presence. His impressive resumé was, however, difficult to live up to, with first-night nerves provoking an occasional trip over his speech that slightly disrupted the otherwise smooth flow of dialogue.

But the star of the show was Matthew Clayton. It was only after he’d delivered his superbly angsty wedding monologue, that the audience were relaxed enough to laugh freely at the writing’s humour. The rapid desperation with which Clayton gulped down a glass of wine, post-rant and slumped on Serge’s two-tone leather sofa, was a particularly memorable highlight. A gifted physical comedian, Clayton was the great tragi-comic victim of the evening’s only punch-up. Lying foetal on the floor, his childlike cry of ‘that really hurt!’ wasn’t just funny because it reminded me of ‘Charlie bit my finger’.

That both Serge and Marc were depicted in tones of snooty elitism created a slightly uncomfortable class-undertone that was never resolved. Certainly, Art sets out to expose the frailties in the foundations of friendships – Serge is understandably vexed to learn that Marc sees him as his disciple. However, Marc and Serge’s posh-boy grimaces and oily self-confidence made the quivering, perpetually skittish Yvan markedly incongruous. It seemed unlikely that he would have ever been drawn to them in the first place. But this was a minor issue, and by no means compromised the excellence of the scenes in which all three characters were on-stage. Indeed, they were all there at the play’s understatedly thrilling climax – no spoiler alert; you’ll just have to go and see for yourself – that had the audience, keen not to disrupt the Pinteresque silence, writhing in their seats with stifled giggling.

There were also plenty of nice directorial and design touches. That the painting was only revealed to the audience half an hour in contributed to a comic sense of suspense that was well judged and effective. The gradual dimming of the lights at the play’s close – reflective, of course, of the content of Marc’s final speech – was memorably atmospheric.

Tapner’s production of Art has a lot going for it. I urge artists, scientists and philistines to head down. You don’t even need to like art to enjoy it.