‘Art’ and the Nature of Friendship

If there’s one lesson to be gleaned from Yasmina Reza’s “Art,” it’s to avoid building up unrealistic expectations of your friends. Theatergoers should observe the same rule with “Art” itself.

Though “Art” won the Tony Award for best play last year, don’t expect a big deal. This is a 90-minute conversation, broken only for a few monologues and one memorably silent action. Most of the play consists of three men indulging in a heated argument about their friendship, discussed primarily through the prism of their aesthetic taste.

Alan Alda, Victor Garber and Alfred Molina--the Broadway cast now imported to the Doolittle Theatre, along with the English translation (from the French) by Christopher Hampton and the staging by Matthew Warchus--have the requisite polish and timing. Laughs are plentiful.

Yet despite repeated assurances that these three characters have been best friends for years, it isn’t believable. So the threatened disintegration of their artificial bond doesn’t matter all that much.

The volleys of the argument are entertaining, as they arouse skin-deep reflections on the nature of friendship and taste. But without a more credible friendship among these men, the ending feels fake.

The play begins when dermatologist Serge (Garber) shows off his latest acquisition, an expensive painting, to Marc (Alda). It’s an almost-all-white canvas with faint diagonal lines. Serge discerns other colors in the painting as well, but if they’re visible, they require a closer look than most in the Doolittle are going to get.

Marc, an aeronautical engineer, reacts to his friend’s purchase with a snide laugh and an epithet to which Serge takes offense. We later learn that Marc has seen himself as Serge’s mentor and taste maker, and he’s shocked that Serge would spend so much money on something that Marc thinks is bunk.

As the conversation develops, Serge is appalled to realize that he’s just a vessel for Marc’s ego, at least in Marc’s eyes. He retaliates by expressing his own disdain for the woman with whom Marc lives.

The third friend, stationery salesman Yvan (Molina), is a peacemaker. Offstage, he’s trying to reconcile his squabbling relatives. Here, he tries to bridge the chasm between Serge and Marc. It’s a thankless task. Both Marc and Serge accuse Yvan of being wishy-washy. Marc calls him even worse names. When Marc and Serge briefly exchange blows, it’s the intervening Yvan who gets hurt.

Molina has the funniest role, including a show-stopping monologue in which he recounts his current, prenuptial headaches in one long, nonstop burst of kvetching. Later, Molina maintains an impeccable deadpan as he reads a bit of advice from his therapist to the other two men--advice that Reza and translator Hampton make amusingly simplistic and contorted at the same time.

More theatergoers will sympathize with Yvan than with Serge or Marc, both of whom take their intellectual preening into the realm of the ridiculous, attacking each other with a gusto that appears to come from nowhere. Marc, at least, seems to realize this--he admits that his friends don’t exist for him apart from “my faith in them. I’m desperate to find a friend who has some kind of prior existence. So far, I’ve had no luck.” This is about as profound as the play gets, yet it points to the main problem with the play, too: These characters exist in too much of a vacuum.

The casting doesn’t help us believe in these men’s shared past, for Alda looks maybe a decade older than Garber, who looks maybe a decade older than Molina. With no shared family tie, professional alliance or school association, how did these three ever get together?

Still, Alda is, as always, a master at spewing out cutting patter. He leans the upper half of his body into the retorts for even more pointed emphasis. In 20 years, he’ll be great at playing cantankerous old men.

Garber maintains an icy facade, embodying the masculine imperative to remain in control as much as possible. More than his fellow actors, he has the burden of pulling off the problematic ending, and he does it as well as anyone could expect.

Even though at least one scene takes place in each character’s home, the stage never changes radically, with the exception of different paintings on the wall. All three men appear to share a common taste for white walls and furniture (even messy Yvan?) and black or at least dark clothes. So maybe that’s where they all met--while shopping.

* “Art,” UCLA/James A. Doolittle Theatre, 1615 N. Vine St., Hollywood. Dark tonight. Regular schedule: Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays-Sundays, 2 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. except for Feb. 7 and 21 and March 7; Thursdays, 2 p.m. on Feb. 4, 18 and March 4. Ends March 14. $20-$60. (800) 447-7400. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes.

Alan Alda: Marc

Victor Garber: Serge

Alfred Molina: Yvan

Produced by David Pugh, Sean Connery, Joan Cullman in association with Ahmanson Theatre/Mark Taper Forum. By Yasmina Reza. Translated by Christopher Hampton. Directed by Matthew Warchus. Design by Mark Thompson. Lighting by Hugh Vanstone. Music by Gary Yershon. Sound by Mic Pool. Production stage manager William Joseph Barnes.