Art: Neil Patrick Harris and James Corden – Photo: Matthew Murphy
Everyone is entitled their own opinion, but is everyone entitled to their opinion of your opinion? Furthermore, is your opinion a reflection of who you are in a greater scope as a person?
Those questions lie at the heart of Art, a starry play on Broadway that has been revived since its initial 1998 run, for which it won a Tony. Back then, it starred Alan Alda, Victor Garber, and Alfred Molina. Now, Neil Patrick Harris, Bobby Cannavale, and James Corden step into the work from French playwright Yasmina Reza, translated from its original language by Christopher Hampton.
Even in our era of short-form entertainment, the 100-minute comedy feels much too long. It evolves around a trio of three longtime friends who debate a $300,000 painting. As Porky Pig so succinctly stated, “That’s all, folks!” Much like an artist and their sycophants who believe that a pretentious artpiece is masterful, theatergoers will also delude themselves into thinking that they have witnessed a show of great import. In fairness, they aren’t totally wrong. Art does have more to offer than what it offers at first blush.
Harris stars as Serge, an affluent collector and dermatologist who has just purchased a painting and is excited to show it off to Marc (Cannavale), an aeronautical engineer and overall rational type. Marc calls the work a “piece of shit” given that it is merely a white canvas with subtle white lines beneath it. He can’t understand how anyone in their right mind would spend that kind of money for something so uninspiring.
Yvan (Corden) arrives at Serge’s apartment and creates the night’s best moment as he yammers on about a phone call he received from his mother before his arrival. Yvan is a high-strung neurotic type who is about to be married and his fast and funny monologue literally stops the show. Corden has Art‘s most enviable role and knows how to elicit laughs from the most subtle lines. It’s a huge task, given that Serge and Marc are the type of guys you’d probably find an excuse to walk away from if you were introduced to them at a party. Yvan is the one you’d want to spend more time with.
Corden is no stranger to Broadway, but it’s been several years since he had people eating from the palm of his hands in the hilarious One Man, Two Guvnors. Once again, he does the same and elevates the performance far above the script. Cannavale brings a commanding presence to the show, but Harris, an actor of limited range, is serviceable and neither enhances nor diminishes Reza’s piece.
As for the deeper meaning of Art, it does raise an interesting point about how myopic our views of others can be. Recently, Broadway darling Kristin Chenoweth made a controversial statement about Charlie Kirk following the right-winger’s assassination. The comment drove the LGBTQ community to fling swords and daggers at her. Is this a fair assessment of her character and loyalty to fans? Countless examples can be found in most social media brouhahas, revealing the harsh reality that people aren’t what we thought they were. Or, we fail to realize that there are far too many complexities and nuances in human behavior to simply label someone as only this or that. It seems that the three leading men of Art are wrestling with these same ideas.
David Rockwell’s set perfectly embodies a sleek, minimalist apartment that one would attribute to a pretentious snob. But much like the white and sterile environment, Art itself, even with its star power, fails to linger in the memory.
Art (★★☆☆☆) is playing on Broadway through Dec. 21, 2025, at The Music Box Theatre, 239 West 45th St. in New York City. Tickets are $114 to $497. Visit artonbroadway.com.
"Friends, Harlemites, countrymen, lend me your ears." The Folger has brought the Bard uptown, courtesy of Al Letson's Julius X, a deft reimagining of Shakespeare's tragedy Julius Caesar as a depiction of the last days of Malcolm X.
As the playwright points out in the production's program notes, Shakespeare's drama of the betrayal and assassination of the political leader in ancient Rome overlaps pretty effectively, plot-wise and thematically, with an account of the betrayal and assassination of the civil rights leader in Harlem 1965.
Accordingly, for Letson's modernized mashup, stylishly staged by Nicole Brewer, the conspirators carry daggers not pistols to slay Julius X inside the Audubon Ballroom. Instead of robes and togas, they rock natty suits, courtesy of costume designer Danielle Preston, who keeps the cast dripping in Harlem swag.
Some scary stories are best told in the dark. That's one lingering conclusion after seeing a midday matinee of Bob Bartlett's gothic horror play Mary Shelley's Monsters, a moody, meta deconstruction of the author's trailblazing novel Frankenstein, examining its text, the god complex of its namesake scientist, and, of course, the Monster he creates.
Directed by Alex Levy, the play is performed inside the historic chapel of centuries-old Congressional Cemetery, seemingly an ideal venue for a creepy vision of gods and monsters on a stormy night.
Congressional Cemetery as a venue contributed mightily to the foreboding atmosphere of Bartlett's allegorical werewolf thriller Lýkos Ánthrōpos, also directed by Levy and performed last year outside among the crypts and tombstones.
In the quiet, concluding moments of Reggie D. White's Fremont Ave. at Arena Stage, characters who have been at odds strike a moving spiritual connection. Sentiment, staging, and composition sit in gentle balance, as director Lili-Anne Brown and company close the often hilariously rowdy family dramedy on a graceful, and still forceful note of well-earned peace.
Brown guides many such delicate moments to fruition in her beautifully layered production of the world-premiere work by writer-actor White, also Arena Stage's senior director of artistic strategy and impact.
White supplies a virtual minefield of sensitive topics for the characters to carefully navigate, from religion and sexuality, to addiction and loss, all reflected through the experiences of three generations of a Black family and their friends.
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