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How much do we believe in abstract art?

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 29, 2012|By Sebastian Smee

Thomas Derrah as artist Mark Rothko in Red at the Wimberly Theatre. (CRAIG BAILEY/PERSPECTIVE…)

There was a time when abstract painting functioned in the homes of the wealthy as a provocation, when certain types of people used to set themselves apart in matters of taste and intelligence by their ability to appreciate marks on canvas that referred to nothing in reality.

Many paid vast sums for such works, mounted them unframed on the walls of their lofts, and drew all kinds of complex satisfactions from seeing their guests not know what to make of them.

Serge, a character in Yasmina Reza’s oft-revived play “Art,’’ is just such a person. He has bought an abstract painting. It is all white. But in it he sees - in the right light, and from the right distance - all kinds of nuances. He wants to show it off to his friends. And in doing so, we’re given to understand, he wants to test them, to dispel niggling doubts of his own - in short, to boost himself.

His friend Marc senses this. Marc finds the painting - and the idea that Serge could have spent a small fortune on it - preposterous. Marc is “one of those new-style intellectuals, who are not only enemies of modernism, but seem to take some sort of incomprehensible pride in running it down,’’ says Serge. The characterization may or may not be fair. But we are left in no doubt that Marc is deeply offended by Serge’s purchase - his little act of faith.

A third character, Yvan - described by Marc as “disastrously open-minded’’ - has no strong feelings either way: He just wants everyone to get along.

Such is the play’s simple yet volatile premise. In the New Repertory Theatre production of “Art’’ at the Arsenal Center for the Arts (through Feb. 5), the play begins with Serge alone onstage scrutinizing his new painting. Facing away from the audience, the painting establishes a kind of barrier between him and us: What is visible to Serge is invisible to us. And there’s the nub of it.

Curiously, “Art’’ is not the only play in town with a three-letter title that begins, when the lights go up, with an actor gazing intently at an abstract canvas that we, the audience, can’t see.

“Red,’’ John Logan’s play about Mark Rothko, presented by SpeakEasy Stage Company at the Wimberly Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts (through Feb. 4), opens in exactly the same way.

The conceit in both cases establishes art itself as a question of belief, something that is visible to some but not so much to others.

“Art’’ is by far the superior play. It traffics in cliches, yes, but it has both compression and candor in its favor, and it is not, finally, about abstract art: It is about friendship.