Art: A Play

by Yasmina Reza, Christopher Hampton (Translator)

Overview

The Tony Award-winning play that focuses on the meaning of art (in the form of a solid white painting) as well as the meaning of friendship, to both the man who bought the painting and the two friends who come to see it."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780571190140
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	03/06/1997
Pages:	80
Sales rank:	324,091
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.65(h) x 0.25(d)

About the Author

Yasmina Reza, born in Paris in 1959, is an acclaimed playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. Her first play, Conversations Après un Enterrement (Conversations After a Burial) won her the 1987 Molière Award for Best Author along with a Johnson Foundation Award and a SACD New Talent Award. Her other works for the theater include Art and The Unexpected Man, among others. She lives in Paris.

Editorial Reviews

This is not some irrelevant fringe production; it is a major intervention in the cultural debate of the country by people who are keen to keep the reactionary tides running. It is probably the most sustained attack on modernism yet seen on the British stage, and it represents a stern challenge to the brilliant success story of British contemporary art.” —The Guardian

“Not only brings to the stage a topical debate, it makes it invigorating, touching and finally disturbing. This dark comedy, translated from the French, in sparkling form, explores its themes through a rift between friends.” —Financial Times

“A remarkably wise, witty and intelligent comedy . . . has touched a universal nerve.” —The Times

“Chic, short, and wickedly, perceptively funny, it's the perfect West End play.” —Nick Curtis, Evening Standard

“Art, which has been translated from the French by Christopher Hampton, is filled from first curtain to ending with a dazzling array of language.” —Iris Fanger, Christian Science Monitor

“It's an actor's dream, a nonstop cross-fire of crackling language, serious issues of life and art expressed in outbursts that sound like Don Rickles with a degree from the Sorbonne. Brilliantly translated by Christopher Hampton, . . . Art takes that yawny old bore, the play of ideas, and jolts it to life.” —Jack Kroll, Newsweek

From the Publisher

It's an actor's dream, a nonstop cross-fire of crackling language, serious issues of life and art expressed in outbursts that sound like Don Rickles with a degree from the Sorbonne. Brilliantly translated by Christopher Hampton, . . . Art takes that yawny old bore, the play of ideas, and jolts it to life.

Newsweek Jack Kroll

Art, which has been translated from the French by Christopher Hampton, is filled from first curtain to ending with a dazzling array of language.

Christian Science Monitor Iris Fanger

Chic, short, and wickedly, perceptively funny, it's the perfect West End play.

Evening Standard Nick Curtis

A remarkably wise, witty and intelligent comedy . . . has touched a universal nerve.

The Times

Not only brings to the stage a topical debate, it makes it invigorating, touching and finally disturbing. This dark comedy, translated from the French, in sparkling form, explores its themes through a rift between friends.

Financial Times

This is not some irrelevant fringe production; it is a major intervention in the cultural debate of the country by people who are keen to keep the reactionary tides running. It is probably the most sustained attack on modernism yet seen on the British stage, and it represents a stern challenge to the brilliant success story of British contemporary art.

The Guardian

That such a simple plot can throw up such profound and meaty ideas about the rules that dictate art and friendship is a real treat. Reza and Hampton have an acute ear for the idiocies, trivia and petty assaults that pepper the conversation between friends...The real pleasures come from Reza's creation of three beautifully defined, original characters...

Mail (London)

...wildly funny, naughtily provocative...

NY Post

Anyone looking for a play that is funny, sophisticated, stylish, stimulating and moving should go to 'ART'.

Independent (London)

...a nonstop cross-fire of crackling language, serious issues of life and art expressed in outbursts that sound like Don Rickles with a degree from the Sorbonne...Reza is a fiendishly clever writer...'ART' sounds like a marriage of Molière and Woody Allen...

Newsweek

In October I called it a minor classic. Let's change that to classic comedy, period.

London Times

Accomplished actors star in this slick, highly entertaining full production of Reza’s award-winning play. Three old friends—Serge (Balaban), Marc (Cox), and Yvan (Perry)—find themselves at odds when Serge purchases an exorbitantly expensive all-white painting. Drudging up old resentments, critiquing the white canvas and their personal relationships, and finally speaking to each other with complete candor, the three friends battle it out while exploring the value and meaning of art and friendship. The entire cast delivers stellar performances, with Cox offering a particularly memorable turn as the petulant Marc in a smart, stylish audiobook that’s a quick listen to boot. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly