Review: Theatre Knoxville Downtown’s ‘Art’ Frames the Value of Friendship

What is the value of friendship, and by what means can we measure it? Director Tom Eubanks’ production of Art at Theatre Knoxville Downtown, which opened last Friday, brings this question to the forefront and complicates it in humorous and touching ways. This production of Art stages Christopher Hampton’s translation of the original French-language script by Yasmina Reza. Art is a story about art, in a way, but it is more about the nature of friendships, especially long-term friendships, and the hidden or unspoken disagreements that can emerge unexpectedly. Art is the catalyst in the social experiment of friendship in which these conflicts bubble to the surface. Eubanks’ Art also serves as a catalyst for a comedic contemplation on what we do, or should do, with our opinions and invokes that timeless adage about everyone having one and that they all stink. 

Three men—Marc, Serge, and Yvan—have maintained close friendships for nearly 15 years, but Serge’s new purchase of a $200,000 work of modern art throws the unaddressed problems within their friendship into stark relief. Marc (Kevin Cannon) cannot fathom why Serge purchased the painting, which is very modern and, to Marc, inscrutable. To many of us who also don’t “get” modern art, we can relate to Marc’s judgement of the solid white painting with three possibly discernible diagonal lines of a slightly different white color. We can also relate to Serge (Steven O’Shea) who insists on being able to like and enjoy what he likes with no confrontation. And we can also relate to Yvan (Ed White), who struggles to play the middleman, the mediator in this feud between Marc and Serge; he just wants them all to remain friends, and this silly little painting shouldn’t cause this much strife, should it? But it does, evolving from insults to each other’s personal taste to personal insults, insults to their romantic lives, insults to their character, and injury to their friendship.

Eubanks’s directorial choices really shine in some moments but can fall a bit flat in others. Audiences are greeted to a dimly lit stage upon taking their seats while modern, jazz-inspired piano music sets the tone for the play’s contemplation on art, taste, style, and friendship. The set design by Sam Thomas is very flexible, serving as one of three separate apartment units belonging to the three male friends; this location change is signaled by the change of a solitary piece of artwork on a stage right to convey each man’s different apartment and artistic preferences. Aside from these paintings, this production is marked by a distinct lack of color. The stage is washed in tones of gray; a singular couch, a lone chair, a small coffee table and the walls of the apartments are either gray or black. At best, this allows the large all-white painting, which for most of the play rests against that single chair on the left of the stage, to loom over the scene, an almost ominous monolith that exudes a sphere of influence over the three friends. The stage lighting, also by Thomas, reflects powerfully off the painting’s white surface, and the artwork seems to glow, where the other black and grey draped props absorb much of that lighting. However, when the painting is removed off stage, that stark energy is lost, and the grey-clad actors tend to melt into their scenery, especially during moments of longer dialogues and little movement. 

What saves some of these dull moments is the chemistry between all three actors when they are onstage together. The spotlit asides given to each character at different times have promising candid, stand-up comedic appeal but occasionally come off as preachy or lecturing. Cannon gets the first aside, and it takes him a while to warm up his delivery, but he hits his stride after his initial argument with Serge which attests to the artistic chemistry between each of the actors. O’Shea’s body language gives off “art snob” that contrasts well with his own pleas to both the audience and his fellow actors to be understood and valued even if his tastes are avant-garde. And White’s Yvan is a physical force as the scruffy bohemian of the friend group, as expressive with his voice as he is with his body. However, during one of his longer monologues in which he rants about his soon-to-be troublesome mothers-in-law, he loses his momentum a bit. But part of that, I think, is just the nature of the scene and the monologue, designed not only to wear out Serge and Marc (and even Yvan himself), but to wear us out, too. When the dialogue gets bouncing around among the three men, they really shine as a group. These moments allow the three actors to quip and react to one another, and it feels like we are witnessing a real bearing of self among friends who are close to and comfortable with one another. We see in real time a self-aware contemplation of how we communicate—through our words, our tone, and our body language, all three of which are so crucial to the theatre. 

While this play might come off to some, like the painting itself, as a bit intellectually difficult, Eubanks and company diffuse a lot of that pretentiousness through comedic absurdity that is accessible to all. We could care less about the fictional artist Antrios, or about the various critics or experts whose names get flaunted here and there by each of the three men. We understand, through all that superficial posturing, that what lies at the heart of this production is the value of friendship and what it might mean to assess that value. We can approach these issues, and this production, in the same way that Marc, Serge, and Yvan learn to approach the painting and their friendship at the end of the play: not as a “white piece of shit,” but with an eye to the faint, subtle reds and yellows of the painting, of the touching textures and colors of both art and life that make human companionship so valuable, so human.