The Eye of the Beholder
“It’s an Antrios,” Serge declares at the start of the play, in a mix of smug self-confidence and ecclesiastical solemnity to a disbelieving Marc, who blurts, “you paid two hundred thousand dollars for this shit?”
Yasmina Reza’s Art centres on this very Antrios painting as a trigger. What starts out as a difference in taste (at some point, we don’t know if Serge finds the adjectives ‘white’ or ‘shit’ more insulting) quickly escalates into fiery arguments, personal attacks and friends questioning the reason why they are even friends to begin with.
Reza’s one-liner factory of a script (translated by Christopher Hampton) looks at our subjective perception of art. Are we simply obsequious parrots of institutionally defined culture? And how much does one’s class influence what we read out of art? Clearly, everyone is entitled to his or her own appreciation of art, but Serge and Marc stand firmly by their own worldviews.
An impeccable cast animates the script, with Gerald Chew playing the cultivated Serge, Lim Yu-Beng the sardonic Marc, and Remesh Panicker the bumbling Yvan, with nary a line out of place, each defensively protecting their fragile male egos. At the climax of their quarrel, where Yvan’s previously innocuous felt-tip pen is put to shocking use, the scene is as taut as piano wire in spite of the sparse dialogue, as the actors’ facial expressions do all the talking.
Twenty-two years after it was written, Art feels just as contemporary and universal, having been translated to multiple languages and staged in Mandarin by Nine Years Theatre back in 2014. Art speaks to people’s insecurities around art, our reactionary posturing to every new –ism that emerges and the unavoidable friction between old friends. Critic Michael Billington singles out the deeper and more difficult question: is a sustained relationship dependent on a “certain skillful hypocrisy”? For all of its riotous hilarity and ninety-minute economy, this is not a trifle of a play, but one that packs a mean intellectual punch.
Oh and did I also forget to mention that Singapore Repertory Theatre’s staging of Art is in our very own National Gallery? The irony is delicious.