Art

Description

Serge has bought a modern work of art for a large sum of money. Marc hates the painting and cannot believe that a friend of his could possibly want such a work. Yvan attempts, unsuccessfully, to placate both sides with hilarious consequences. The question is: Are you who you think you are or are you who your friends think you are?

Yasmina Reza is a French playwright and novelist, based in Paris, whose works have all been multi-award-winning, critical and popular international successes. Her plays, Conversations After a Burial, The Passage of Winter, Art, The Unexpected Man, Life x 3, A Spanish Play and The God of Carnage have been produced worldwide and translated into thirty-five languages. Novels include Hammerklavier, Une Desolation, Adam Haberberg, Dans la Luge d'Arther Schopenhauer, Nulle Part and L'Aube le Soir ou la Nuit. Film includes Le Pique-Nique de Lulu Kreutz directed by Didier Martiny. Christopher Hampton was born in the Azores in 1946. He wrote his first play, When Did You Last See My Mother? at the age of eighteen. Since then, his plays have included The Philanthropist, Savages, Tales from Hollywood, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, White Chameleon, The Talking Cure and Appomattox. He has translated plays by Ibsen, Moliere, von Horvath, Chekhov, Florian Zeller (including The Father), Daniel Kehlman and Yasmina Reza (including Art and Life x 3). Musicals include Sunset Boulevard and Stephen Ward, both with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Don Black. His television work includes adaptations of The History Man and Hotel du Lac. His screenplays include The Honorary Consul, The Good Father, Dangerous Liaisons, Mary Reilly, Total Eclipse, The Quiet American, Carrington, The Secret Agent and Imagining Argentina, the last three of which he also directed, and A Dangerous Method, based on his play The Talking Cure. Appomattox was first presented on the McGuire Proscenium Stage of the Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, USA, in September 2012 as the centrepiece of a major retrospective of his plays and films. It was subsequently turned into an opera by Philip Glass and premiered at the Kennedy Center, Washington in November 2014. Christopher Hampton was born in the Azores in 1946. He wrote his first play, When Did You Last See My Mother?, at the age of eighteen. Since then, his plays have included The Philanthropist, Savages, Tales from Hollywood, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, White Chameleon, The Talking Cure, Appomattox and A German Life. He has translated plays by Ibsen, Moliere, von Horvath, Chekhov and Yasmina Reza. This is his seventh translation of a play by Florian Zeller, including The Father, which he subsequently co-wrote for the screen with Florian Zeller. His television work includes adaptations of The History Man, Hotel du Lac and The Singapore Grip. His screenplays include The Honorary Consul, The Good Father, Dangerous Liaisons, Mary Reilly, Total Eclipse, The Quiet American, Atonement, Cheri, A Dangerous Method, Carrington, The Secret Agent and Imagining Argentina, the last three of which he also directed.

"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