Serge (Neil Patrick Harris) buys a painting.  It’s an Antrios.  A seventies Antrios, which is worth mentioning, since Antrios is going through a similar phase now.  The painting infuriates his best friend, Marc (Bobby Cannavale), because, according to Marc, the canvas is white: “The background is white and if you screw up your eyes, you can make out some fine white diagonal lines.”  Serge disagrees.  “I wouldn’t like it if it was white,” he tells Marc.  There are, in fact, “a whole range of greys” as well as “some red in it.”  Yvan (James Corden), the third member of their trio, takes the middle path, agreeing with Marc’s assessment that the painting is “white shit” but exaggerating his appreciation for the sake of Serge’s feelings.  The most important point, however, the central problem in Yasmina Reza’s Art, is that the Antrios cost $300,000.  Serge is one of Marc’s oldest friends, and Marc is forced to ask himself: Can I be friends with someone like that?

Art is both an ingenious satire on the bourgeois and a sweet comedy about how friendships transform across decades.  Corden, whose volume lands somewhere around a pneumatic chipper, is well-cast as the high-strung Yvan.  Yvan is getting married and is overwhelmed by the demands of his fiancée, mother, stepmother, and fiancée’s stepmother.  His outburst on this subject, a monologue that lasts for several pages in the script, is the centerpiece of the play.  Cannavale, too, works well as the smug reverse snob who prides himself on his dismissal of modern art.  His staccato “hah-hah-hah” is condescending in its unhurried delivery; rather than the uncontrolled release of an ordinary laugh, it’s like he’s choosing to express his derision.  I did find Harris a little flat or indistinct—he didn’t convince me that he loved that painting.

Nevertheless, this is a minor qualm over an otherwise excellent revival.  Reza is a master of this genre, where people who believe they are civilized break down over trivial domestic problems (see Life x 3 and God of Carnage).  The original Broadway production ran for twenty previews and six hundred performances, and the opening night cast (Victor Garber as Serge, Alan Alda as Marc, and Alfred Molina as Yvan) was replaced by a range of interesting actors: Brian Cox and George Segal (Serge), Wayne Knight and George Wendt (Yvan), Judd Hirsch and even Buck Henry (Marc).  I hope to see the play become a success again, not only because of the potential for the replacement cast, but also because Reza’s work—this is the first revival of hers on Broadway—deserves more attention in America.

Art runs through December 21st at the Music Box Theatre.  239 West 45th Street  New York, NY.  1 hour 40 minutes.  No intermission. Photograph by Matthew Murphy.