The debate has raged for centuries, but it doesn't usually come up in a regular conversation. But it would probably be a big deal in any group of friends if one of them bought a white painting - all white - for $45,000, then wondered what the others thought of it.
No doubt some people would be diplomatic, polite, and support that person doing what they thought best. Others would be thrilled at the big commitment of money to something so emotional and subjective as the art industry.
Others would be hostile and look at their friend like there was a screw loose.
It might unleash a big debate.
That debate could get into an argument, because, let's be honest, all arguments are really about deeper things than whatever tipped it off. Who really cares about a white painting, when we're all just living a short life spinning on a speck of stardust in an endless expanse? But making impulsive decisions, throwing your money at status symbols, falling for some story about what's a good investment?
Them's fightin' words.
You get the whole scrap in one brightly lit package, from the comfort of a cozy theatre seat at Theatre North West, where all the nasty things you've ever wanted to say about art gets said, and so does all the stuff you've ever thought was great about art.
Three friends: Serge, Marc and Yvan all doggy-pile on each other's feelings with the core discussion being the four-by-five canvas of white just purchased by Serge. It's better than MMA.
The script for the play Art - the season opener for Theatre North West - is gaining attention as one of the best of the modern era. It's a tall claim, but when you hear the characters saying the things you were thinking, and pushing the same buttons you were pushing in your own head, you start to realize just how brilliant it is.
There are some potholes in the script, although none of them are playwright Yasmina Reza's fault.
She wrote it in French, in Paris.
It has been translated, but it is still set in Paris without that being established from the beginning.
So it is a little jarring to hear the actors - Richard Alan Campbell as Serge the painting purchaser, Garry Davey as the conservative curmudgeon Marc, and David Leyshon as the go-along-to-get-along Yvan - crashing headlong through their dialogue only to suddenly refer to francs instead of dollars.
The actors also contribute somewhat to the early disconnect between them and their audience.
It is only the first few days the show is on at Theatre North West, so even in hands as professional as these, the muscles are still warming up. The first 15 minutes or so feel like lines being delivered, although deliciously delivered.
This changes, though. By the end of Art, all three are not saying lines, they are fighting with each other. They are looking each other in the eye, or dodging each other's eye contact, or stepping on each other's words the way anyone does when we have a debate that's gone too far. It becomes real.
The first signs of the shift from three actors to three friends happened subtly. Leyshon fingered a lamp as he talked. It wasn't in the script. It was what people do when they are in a room with an interesting shiny thing in it.
This dialogue is fast and literally furious. The actors took turns flubbing their lines. Not a character-smashing flub, but just bumbling on pronunciation the way we all do if we speak quickly and passionately. These three stage pros are so good at their jobs, they let the stumbles happen, bounced through them in natural course.
And then it happened. Their voices lowered that critical octave, their bodies relaxed into being at home, and through tiny mistake was born the main attraction.
Yes, the script is tight as a drum, but these actors are what you want to see Art for. Director Jack Grinhaus made two critical positive moves in his choices for this play.
One was conveying the arguments as they happen in real life. It is so difficult to represent theatre arguments and find that sweet feeling of reality. He does.
Two was selecting this cast.
These three have thick resumes (Leyshon, local audiences will remember, played the lead role and many smaller roles in last year's TNW production of Billy Bishop Goes To War), and it shows. They are leaders in their field and having them on a local stage together is a privilege. They all have their shining moment, all of them leap off the page at times, but Leyshon gets the special advantage (I'm sure it didn't feel like an advantage in rehearsals) of a four-page soliloquy machine-gunned at 100 miles an hour. The audience was whooping halfway through, egging him on, and the room erupted in a roar of applause and whistles when he was done. It was like the theatrical version of a drum solo.
And because he's such a pro, even that, when there's a lot of room for soaking up the response, he plays it straight and sober at all times. They all do.
There is so much emotion in this wrestling match, but they keep gloating out of it.
An audience needs to know a few practical things going into this show. There is no intermission, because there is no way to stop this freight train of a script, so go to the bathroom before you settle into your seats.
Also, you're getting to be a fly on a wall in a highly-charged room (three rooms actually, one for each of the characters, and for that the set designers need a round of applause, too). This is an argument. This is a fight. The weapons are words, and they throw some F-bombs. By now, in a society finally getting its head around the silliness and danger of censorship, most people understand that characters in theatre are supposed to be a reflection of society. When society speaks, society uses ample doses of various slang words, and when it's a big ol' row, one of the favourites starts with F and rhymes with duck. And it's fabulous, in this conflict.
But if you own a pair of ears that still ring at the sound of the F-word, this will be a challenge.
Another challenge, a fun one, will be trying to spot your own friends in the traits and politics of Serge, Marc and Yvan. None of them is made to be the good guy, all of them are displayed with personality warts and ugly self-inflicted scars. They are people. And yet, they are art. Aren't they?
This play is on now at TNW until Oct. 7. And, for the first time in my long history of observing TNW plays, this one I recommend you might want to see twice, so keep a pencil by your calendar.
