ABOUT THE PLAY
From its opening night in 1995, audiences have delighted in Art; it continues to play to sellout houses internationally thirteen years later. Produced in over thirty countries and with a box office of over $350 million worldwide – it is a modern classic and a “hit.”

It resonates with audiences because they laugh and cry, and then, identify. Alvin Klein described the piece as a work that “can be taken as a statement of the meaning and the arbitrariness of the word that gives the play its title: a three letter work that will forever incite controversy.”

Serge, one of Marc’s two best friends, has purchased a white painting by a trendy painter for the 1996 price of $200,000. Marc disapproves and tries to enlist Yvan as an ally in the debate about the nature of art and friendship that ensues.

While the debate over the painting leads to consideration of aesthetic values – is modern abstract art more or less significant than classical traditional representation, the painting and its cost come to stand for the growing rift in the friendship of all three men.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in 1959 Paris to Jewish parents – a father of Russian and Iranian heritage and a Hungarian mother, Yasmina Reza is an active novelist as well as a playwright and the mother of two children. And while she has had exceptional success in both genres, Reza began her professional career as an actress, appearing in both contemporary works and the classics of Moliere and Marivaux.

Her first play (1987) was Conversations After a Burial which won numerous prizes for new talent across Europe and in South America. She then translated Kafka’s Metamorphosis for Roman Polanski and authored a second play, Winter Crossing (1990). She went on to The Unexpected Man and then Art; the later won the Oliver Award and Evening Standard Award (1996/7) and a Tony (1998).

Despite the laughter her stage works produce, she sees her plays as “tragedy, funny tragedy. Art is heartbreaking.” Life X 3(2000) and A Spanish Play (2004) are her most recent stage pieces and she has also published “L’Aube, le Soir ou la Nuit” (Dawn Evening or Night) – her “sensational “study of Nicolas Sarkozy’s pursuit of the French presidency.

Her most recent work is The God of the Carnage (2007) which opened in Zurich and has gone on to win the Viennese Nestroy-Theatreprize. Caryn James (The New York Times) describes her as “a born satirist, a gifted and wry observer of the absurdities and feints of social life… and of the small deceptions that help us all survive.” James goes on to assert that Reza is a “mini-Proust, grasping at immense themes that elude her: the slipstream of time, the isolations of individuals and especially of artists.”

She has been fortunate in her English language translator – Christopher Hampton, a noted English playwright – who is credited by actors and critics alike with a fine flair for language and the nuances of male badinage.

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
For director Erik Stein, Art is a timely work that” focuses on the deconstruction of a friendship” and employs an examination of a work of art to do so. Stein suggests that Reza’s play asks a series of important questions “Should a friendship be comfortable or should it challenge? Should a friendship be a haven or should it evoke, provoke, and inspire? Should that friendship rely on what is known or should it break the rules?” And most importantly, “is any unexamined friendship worth having?”

To explore such questions, Stein is interested in the notions of reduction, destruction and construction (processes that mirror Marc, Serge and Yan) that are mutually pertinent to one another. He cites the philosopher Martin Heidegger’s observation that “Construction necessarily involves destruction.” To pursue this philosophical perception, this production seeks to bring greater definition to both the friendships and “the white painting” – to illuminate the details of both as the play progresses. This production also celebrates the relationship between actor and audience – direct connection with the audience in the intimacy of our Severson Theatre allows direct address. That direct address in turn allows validation, immediate validation.

Audience, like another character, can become an ally in the endless permutations and combinations of allegiance that this play explores.