The Aurora Fox production showcases some top-tier local talent
Damn, those guys were good.
That’s what I was thinking on the way out of the Aurora Fox on a frosty Saturday night after seeing the comedy Art. Beautifully directed by Kate Gleason, the production features three Colorado actors I’ve admired in many roles: Garreth Saxe, Matthew Schneck and Andrew Uhlenhopp. Seeing this trio together onstage is a real treat.
The 1994 play by Yasmina Reza was originally done in French, and the English-language adaptation by Christopher Hampton went on to win the Tony Award for Best Play in 1998. Thirty years on, this production is being staged in the Fox’s smaller black-box theatre — an ideal venue for following the rapid-fire dialogue and to see the actors’ faces as they portray three old friends divided over a piece of art.
But is it art? That’s the question Marc (Schneck) and Yvan (Uhlenhopp) have when Serge (Saxe) coughs up 200,000 francs for a large painting that is all white. And while the somewhat affluent dermatologist can afford it, the first friend he shows it to, Marc, is aghast. After indulging Serge by taking a good look at the painting, he soon declares it “white shit,” and wonders how his friend could see it otherwise.
It’s hard to imagine a more perfect Serge than Saxe. He’s one of those actors who imprints instantaneously on audiences with his one-of-a-kind persona, nasal voice and shock of gray hair. His performance here is a combination of snooty aloofness that belies a deeper conflict that’s led him to what is for him a bold and unexpected act.
As for Schneck, I’ll always remember his extraordinary performance in last summer’s production of One Man, Two Guvnors at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival (for which he won an OnStage Colorado OSCA for top actor in a comedy). Compared to that highly farcical performance, here he portrays Marc as a nervous wreck on the edge of sanity so convincingly that I found myself urging him in my mind to calm down lest he burst a vein.
(L-R) Andrew Uhlenhopp and Matthew Schneck in ‘Art’ at the Aurora Fox | Photo: Gail Marie
Beyond the painting, truth
Serge’s stupid painting may just push him over, but we soon learn it’s not the painting so much; it’s his suspicious feelings about the motive for the purchase itself. And while he may mock Serge as a pretentious fool, we learn that Serge is a middle-aged man still trying to figure out who he is. The same is true of the third friend, Yvan (Uhlenhopp) — a marginally employed fuck-up who’s due to be married soon to a woman he later learns his friends despise.
As the wishy-washy man in the middle, Yvan tries to remain neutral by glossing over his own feelings about the painting’s absurdity to please Serge while confiding with Marc his real opinion. The versatile Uhlenhopp is in his element here, careening between mild-mannered insouciance and a full-throated confession about his own self-worth delivered in a devastating scene later in the play. The actor comes with his own sidekick — an unruly shock of hair whose levels of dishevelment become part of his costume.
Gleason gives the three men a free hand to develop these characters with a palate full of vocal and facial expressions that clearly define them each while adding comic effect between every line. With the help of fight choreographer Amy Arpan in parts, she fills the stage with as much interesting movement as dialogue. Along the way, Brett Maughan’s spare yet effective lighting hits its own comic marks quite well as the characters shift from conversation to interior monologue. Special notice also goes to Brandon Philip Case for a lovely set that uses skylights and angular geometry to create a space that effectively serves as the apartment for each character.
Exactly equal in weight in the performance, the audience is left without a strong “winner” in mind. The blank painting presents a midlife tabula rasa upon which they all project their own shit, ultimately proving its artistic worth as a disturbingly effective mirror — at least for this particular threesome.
Consistently funny from start to finish and done in as good a production as you’d see anywhere, Art is a great example of how three well-directed characters with a solid script can fill a stage as effectively as any big-budget musical. Try not to miss this one.
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