Art

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https://marrinergroup.com.au/shows/art

Date Reviewed: 24/04/2026

The freshest breath of air to wind its way into Melbourne’s theatres, Art is the show to see right now.

Serge, played by Damon Herriman, has spent €160,000 on a large white canvas. Apparently, there are lines and dimensions; I don’t think there were (a key trick of the show), but my partner reckons there must have been. Marc, played by Richard Roxburgh, is infuriated by the purchase and believes it is a complex kind of attack on their long friendship. Toby Schmitz as the submissive Yvan balances between them, unable until the end to take a side. Marc interprets the painting as a kind of enormous shift in their relationship, a change in their shared reality, Serge believing it is his intellectual awakening and cultural blossoming.

This particular revival of Art doesn’t seem determined to reinvent the 1990s play by Yasmina Reza. It’s humorous and allows for a great deal of superb acting, but in my mind, it lacks a certain academic heaviness when discussing art and culture. There is potential there but is left unexplored for the sake of the characters.

I have some previous experience with Art; I listened to the LA Theatreworks online version years ago, performed by Brian Cox, Bob Balaban, and Jeff Perry. I enjoyed this production coming to Melbourne almost as much as I did listening to it previously. The differences were striking, and what on the surface can seem to be a very routine 90-minute play about culture is crammed with so much thematic material.

It’s the kind of show people can watch and come away with a dozen different perspectives. People in the crowd as we left were abuzz.

“It’s not really about Art, is it?”

Croaked a well-dressed old fella to his much younger wife.

“Don’t you think it’s all about perception, how we perceive the world, as if the painting wasn’t there?”

Shouted a rat-faced twerp in glasses.

“I thought it was all about social standing, like high, middle, and low status characters?”

Bleats a chubby retiree from beneath their programme.

In my opinion, the show is as much about art and paintings as it is about the role of culture in a capitalist society. Serge and Marc represent those able to afford masterpieces. Serge represents modern tastes, while Marc represents traditional ones. Yvan instead represents those unable to buy artwork, who go to public galleries and/or hang their father’s “daubs” on their walls. Their disagreements reflect their social standing as much as their actual opinions. The characters don’t really care about the painting; they use it as a tool to project their values, insecurities, and desperate need for each other’s love onto the “Antrios”.

Yasmina Reza’s writing is superb; her ability to take the relationships between human beings and friends and use them as a springboard is breathtaking to behold. The real sign a writer is talented is that the dialogue sends genuine emotion emerging from the characters rather than an artificial creation. Reza’s writing exemplifies this. The play begins with Marc being brutally honest to his friend about what he thinks about his new painting. The play ends with Serge telling Marc a lie for the sake of their friendship continuing. The cyclical nature of this is so subtle and well done by Reza; I myself didn’t realise this clever writing until the day after the work.

Reviewed by Nic