A white painting stirs three friends into a frenzy, posing as an existential threat. The acclaimed comedy Art by Yasmina Reza is as fresh as ever on the Blue Box Theatre stage.

Of course, this is not a play about art. It might not fit neatly as a comedy, either. It would almost be a tragedy had the calamities it depicts been less private or inconsequential. One wonders what the three friends that populate the play would make of the issue, although one would imagine the question would spark disagreement.

Art, written by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton, is a play about friendship, specifically that of Marc (Philp Leone-Ganado), Serge (Nathan Brimmer) and Yvan (Joseph Zammit). Marc is beset by Serge’s latest purchase – a completely white painting costing a substantial sum. Marc finds the whole thing rather distressing.

“It’s a complete mystery to me, Serge buying this painting. It’s unsettled me, it’s filled me with some indefinable unease,” he says in an aside.

Yvan tries to mitigate matters with Marc, and later with Serge, all the while being very non-committal about his position on the painting, forming his opinions to suit his present company.

The many asides, especially at the beginning of the play, reflect one of the dysfunctions of their friendship – directness in their speech seems to be in short supply, despite the sharpness of their tongues. Slowly, as the argument intensifies, these asides lessen and lessen as more of their true feelings emerge.

Marc’s disdain towards the painting is on one level a response to the pretentiousness of contemporary art but more so a response to his friend’s adoption of likewise ostentatious qualities.

“It started on the day we were discussing some work of art and you uttered, quite seriously, the word ‘deconstruction’. […] You said, humourlessly, unapologetically, without a trace of irony, the word ‘deconstruction’, you – my friend,” says Marc at one point in the play.

He went on to make a throwaway remark about his friend’s utterance, to which Serge replied, “Who do you think you are? What makes you so high and mighty? […] You’re just Marc, what makes you think you’re so special?”

What sort of a friend are you, Serge, if you don’t think your friends are special?

Therein lies the crux of their contention: “What sort of a friend are you, Serge, if you don’t think your friends are special?”

Leone-Ganado’s Marc is an unwavering cynic who cannot help his acidic remarks against the perceived trickery in Serge’s every utterance on his painting and the art world whence it came.

His inability to let things slide in the interest of peace often draws squirms of anguish from the stalls, as if to implore, ‘don’t do it… hold your tongue’. For all his cynicism, however, he is ironically seen chewing on homeopathic remedies supplied by his girlfriend to ease his ill-feelings.

Indeed, irony and humour are mainstays of the friends’ dysfunction. Marc and Serge lament that the other has lost his sense of humour, speaking with unwarranted seriousness and solemnity about things they would have collectively found laughable earlier in their 15-year friendship. Yvan is likewise lambasted for having lost his edge, and even for instigating further rancour among them for being so staunchly on the fence.

Zammit’s Yvan appears neurotic and prone to exuberance. His highly strung recounting of a most stressful telephone call garnered hearty applause from the stalls. He manages to convey a sort of unlikable likability, eliciting the kind of suspicion we may feel with respect to people who are too nice (I’m not sure whether or not this sentiment is very widely shared… hopefully I have not revealed too much about myself).

Joseph Zammit as Yvan seen speaking to Marc, played by Philip Leone-Ganado.

Brimmer’s Serge dons his acquired sophistication rather well; we may well not think anything amiss were it not for Marc’s finger-pointing. We don’t necessarily dislike him for his taste in art, although it is tempting to. We may well be as stern and defensive as he were someone to say we wasted €45,000 on “shit”. The subtle sense of superiority with which Brimmer imbues his character comes across quite convincingly.

The friends’ age adds an interesting quality to the play, perhaps because youth allows for certain excesses of emotion or passionate responses. The word ‘deconstruction’ rests on a younger man’s lips differently than on those of an older one.

Malcolm Galea’s direction and Romualdo Moretti’s set design also added to a seamless production at M Space’s Black Box Theatre in Msida.

Staged by some of Malta’s most capable actors, the play met all expectations. Leone-Ganado’s performance especially showed a great effortlessness while the trio’s familiarity gave a much more realistic flair to the performance.

The final performance of Art is taking place today at Blue Box Theatre at 8pm. This project is supported by Arts Council Malta and presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd on behalf of Samuel French Ltd.