"Art" at Steppenwolf Theatre on Feb. 15th in Chicago, IL

This production of Yasmina Reza's play is incredibly well acted. It's not the kind of acting where people cry, scream, or argue (though they do those things) but the kind of acting that brings out strengths of a script that are otherwise easy to miss. And this is a tightly structured script that continuously circles in on itself, revealing progressively more each time it makes a turn.

In the play, Serge has bought an incredibly expensive painting that his best friend, Marc, is inexplicably pissed about. This argument escalates to include Ivan, the third in a close friendship, and the three decide to call it quits. In the first three scenes of the play, we witness three discussions about the painting, a white canvas with white diagonal lines, that show how differently each of the men see the painting, or rather the value each man puts on art. One is excited by the novelty of style, the other sees it as pretension, and the third as something whose ownership might cause happiness. Each man invests his own feelings to construct a meaning of the painting. One sees the excitement of modernity, components of the ridiculous contemporary art world, and an opportunity for comfort and happiness.

As the play progresses, the analysis of our relationship to art is extended to our human relationships. In the way that art can be a white canvas that absorbs and reflects our histories, so can ay interaction in which we engage. On one level, how we see others is determined by our own psychological make-up. On another level, what we think about ourselves is determined by how we believe others see us. As the scenes play themselves out, Reza's script goes deeper and deeper and we learn increasingly more about each man and his relationship to the others and the world.

What starts off as a someone intellectual unfolding shifts into a very human one. At that point, the audience made a collective gasp. It's never a complete shift, though. The intellectual continues throughout.

For me, the script is the star of the show. I was astounded from the very start. However, I've seen the play before and, while I liked it, I was never terribly impressed. The acting, which isn't exactly understated nor showy, makes that possible without drawing attention to itself. It was the most interesting script I've seen at Steppenwolf in many years. While not as fun as "August, Osage County," in my book it's a more interesting script because it has a philosophical underpinning that is lacking in "August."