27 December 2023
These are not times for the conflict averse. The media (social and otherwise) seems awash with vitriolic disagreements, opinions frequently accompanied by snarls, snipes and condemnations. So why would you want to sit in a theater and listen to three men argue for 80 minutes?
Here’s a reason: If you do, you might look back upon it as one of the most rewarding Twin Cities productions of 2023.
That’s how I felt after experiencing the Guthrie Theater’s staging of “Art,” a comedy with some serious things to say about friendship, identity and opinions. At a time when tribalism has run amok — and a time of year when friends and family are reunited and often tiptoeing around differences — Yasmina Reza’s 1994 play is a funny and thought-provoking examination of what drives people to embrace conflict.
Boasting note-perfect performances from Robert O. Berdahl, Patrick Sabongui and Max Wojtanowicz, it succeeds as a finely sculpted character study that extends outward into how and why people press each other’s buttons and the ways in which we define ourselves according to how we’re received by others. It’s a fascinating and deeply involving show.
The title, “Art,” comes with quotation marks around it, which speaks to the controversy that threatens to destroy three friendships. Serge has purchased a work of modern art, a painting that displays crisscrossing white lines on a white canvas. His friend, Marc, deems it an absurd decision and the painting to be of minimal worth. Soon dragged into the dispute is their habitual peacemaker friend, Yvan.
Over the course of several scenes, these three characters open up to the audience in direct address, but often struggle to be entirely honest with one another. Each of these middle-age men feels misunderstood and under attack at one point or another. When at their most vulnerable, they tend to shield up and lash out.
Can these friendships be saved? That becomes the central question, and the combination of Reza’s compelling writing and the disarmingly realistic performances will likely make you feel invested in the outcome.
Contributing to the conflict is that these three friends of 15 years have distinctly different approaches to the world around them. Berdahl’s Serge is an intellectual who seems to believe that anyone who disagrees with him just isn’t sufficiently knowledgeable to understand his points. Berdahl makes of him a tightly wound confluence of arrogance and insecurity.
Meanwhile, Sabongui deftly brings out the id in Marc, priding himself on following his impulses, consequences be damned, but now confronting how much he’s willing to risk to be right.
And then there’s Yvan, paradoxically both the most emotionally honest of the three and the most likely to bury his feelings to avoid a fight. With this production, Wojtanowicz delivers the breakout performance I’ve been longing to experience after years of enjoying his gifts on Twin Cities stages. It’s a tour de force of emotional extremes, at once hilarious, heartbreaking, sweet, subtle and passionate.
Under the sharp, detail-oriented direction of Kimberly Senior and played out on a sparsely furnished set that suggests a blank canvas — courtesy of Brian Sidney Bembridge — the Guthrie’s production makes the conversation gripping. Be sure and make some time after the show to have one of your own.
‘Art’
When: Through Jan. 28
Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 Second St. S., Minneapolis
Tickets: $77-$17, available at 612-377-2224 or guthrietheater.org
Capsule: Funny, fascinating and among 2023’s most compelling productions.
Related Articles
Letters: No snow, no woods nearby, but reminded nonetheless of Frost’s famous poem
Review: The musical version of ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ is both garish and dull
This updated ‘Peter Pan’ will still delight Ordway Music Theater audiences
Theater review: Jungle Theater’s ‘Dinner for One’ a touching take on a European TV tradition
‘Aladdin,’ now playing in Minneapolis, will fulfill your wish for entertaining musical theater