Cast brings depth, guffaws to ‘Art’

A pattern seems to be developing: Every 10 years Interplayers will stage “Art,” and every time, “Art” will be exceptionally funny, smart and well cast.

This time around, the result is easily – by a mile – the finest Interplayers production of the season.

We could reasonably expect a certain level of quality since Yasmina Reza’s clever and brilliant comedy won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Yet this production exceeds its already high expectations because of a seasoned and talented three-man cast: Jack Bannon, Roger Welch and Patrick Treadway.

All three of these veteran actors are absolutely right for their roles.

Welch, as Serge, exudes a boyish, amateur-collector enthusiasm when he unveils the object around which the play revolves: a large, all-white painting. His eyes shine with pride as he displays it, like Vanna White displaying a vowel. But there’s something about his neediness that makes you wonder. Does he truly want his friends, Marc and Yvan, to love the painting? Or does he want them to be jealous because he can afford to spend 200,000 francs on something so … fashionably worthless?

Bannon, as the bald, gray-bearded Marc, is the alpha dog of the group. He towers above Serge and growls his disdain for this joke of a painting and for a world that would place any value at all on such an utter fraud. He believes in the classical values – form and color, to name two.

Fair enough. Yet Bannon gives Marc a sinister edge. His papa lion posturings border on bullying. When Marc glowers under those eyebrows, you see a man who values his own traditionalist agenda more than he values his oldest friends.

Treadway’s Yvan is the lightweight of the bunch, both physically and intellectually. He’s bright, peppy and content to play the role of the clown, and at times, the lap dog. Treadway’s gift for voices and mimicry are used to exceptionally hysterical effect in Yvan’s great set piece: an extended account of a series of arguments about wedding announcement etiquette. It’s not just the funniest scene in the play; it’s the funniest scene I’ve witnessed all season.

But Treadway is too intelligent to make Yvan a mere buffoon. With his hands wringing in anguish and his forelock hanging over his forehead, he turns Yvan into a desperate figure – desperate to be liked by his overbearing friends, but also desperate to rescue himself from loneliness and failure.

The play is ostensibly about art (as in, what is it?) but it is actually about the prickly, difficult and often-inept nature of men’s friendships. Director Reed McColm thoughtfully orchestrates everything – the line-readings, the movement, the lighting – to accentuate the essential isolation of these men. Suddenly, the lights will darken and one character will stand in a small cage of light, appealing directly to the audience for understanding about why he is right and his friends are wrong.

A final, devastating pool of light on Yvan has its own tragic impact after the final line has been spoken.

The set, by Damon Abdallah, is suitably minimalist – all red walls and chrome furniture. It conveys the upscale strivings of Serge as well as conveying to the audience: This is a comedy of manners, but it’s no parlor-piece.

With three friends arguing about “nothing” for 90 minutes, “Art” almost has a “Seinfeld” feel – and it is just as funny. Yet it probes more deeply than any half-hour sitcom.

The result on opening night was a happy and satisfied audience, and I predict many large, happy audiences to come.