What is Art? a small question, but dealt with seriously and cleverly in this play.
We looked forward to seeing it becuase of the great cast - Peter Donaldson, Evan Buliung and Colin Mochrie are all favorites and they did not disappoint.
Donaldson caught exactly the right note as the skeptic, Mochrie was calm and forebearing in spite of his enthusiasm for the painting and Buliung was brilliant as the neutral friend dealing with his own problems. His entrance monologue was so good that the audience could not refrain from an ovation that was well deserved.
I saw this play first in the original french and enjoyed it then, even though I knew I was missing many of the jokes since the dialogue was so fast. The translation is excellent, so good that you would swear the play must have been written in English.
Yes, it was great; possibly we should have given this one a standing ovation at the end?
ReplyDeleteIn English (Christopher Hampton's translation) the dialogue sparkled and it seemed that it really it is about friendship - art is just the catalyst. It was very funny, but also a serious exploration of friendship.
I wonder if the same was true in the French original, or was there more political angst?
I also wonder why Yasmina Reza chose to explore friendship (if, indeed, that is her goal) through men, rather than women? Did she not see this as a thing women would focus on? Perhaps she has another play about the relationships of women?
For us, we had a version of that with Communion a little while ago.
Of course, Communion was written by a man.
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