What do you say to a friend who proudly shows you an expensive purchase you consider worthless? Which do you value more highly, your honesty or his friendship?

The possible answers to these questions form the basis of the delightful comedy "Art," now in an excellent production at Sonora's Stage 3 Theatre.

For a comedy with only one set, three characters, virtually no action and a specialized theme, the work has had amazing success.

Playwright Yasmina Reza's Paris hit later won several important prizes in London with an English version. Then it went on to Broadway, where it won the 1998 Tony Award and has since been translated into some 20 languages for companies all over the world.

"Art's" three characters are so different in their personalities they serve almost as symbols for opposing mind-sets.

Serge (Lucas McClure), a successful doctor, has just paid $50,000 for a painting that appears to be asolid white canvas. A modernist determined to live in the present, he embraces novelty for its own sake. McClure captures the essence of this dilettante who is assertive but basically insecure in his artistic expertise.

His friend Marc, clearly characterized by Don Bilotti, prides himself on his independent spirit and his dogmatically conservative opinions on aesthetic matters.

Caught in the middle, Ivan (Stuart Pierce) serves as a buffer -- or even a buffoon -- in the trio. Unsuccessful in business, enmeshed in a hopeless family situation, he vainly tries to soothe feelings and maintain an equilibrium of friendship.

Pierce exploits to the hilt the two comic highlights offered by this role. Arriving very late for a dinner date, he hilariously launches into a pointless monologue of family matters that goes on for about five minutes without pause for breath. His other show stopper is when he eats an olive (given perhaps as a symbolic olive branch) with the intense concentration of a squirrel opening a stubborn walnut.

With little going on except talk, "Art" provides a supreme test of ensemble acting. This cast passes with honors in timing, nuance and interaction.

Though art and friendship are the themes of this comedy, its basic energy comes from self-analysis run amok. Each character minutely examines his every thought and word, both in conversations and in asides to the audience. The constantly changing attitudes and ideas provide a duel of varied attacks and realigned defenses.

Different themes come and go as they are developed and rejected. The conversation has the complex symmetry of a Bach fugue.

At the end, we see revealed the many conflicted attitudes involved in their relationships with each other.

Perhaps the great popularity of this play lies in its near-perfect conception of a novel idea, beautifully developed themes and an expertly constructed overall design.

This encompassing concept can be seen even in the set design. The single scene, which functions as each of the three men's apartments, simply changes a painting to identify the locale. Three chairs, which remain in place, also reflect the tenant's taste. Serge has his white painting and a severely modern chair. Marc displays a conventional scenic landscape and a traditional chair. Ivan hangs a poorly painted floral behind a comfy overstuffed lounge chair.

Another strength of "Art" lies in the underwritten text, which gives the actors and directors greater flexibility in developing their own specific characterizations.

Certainly this production, elegantly lit by Ron Madonia, splendidly cast and expertly directed by Barbara Segal-Mill, offers a definitive interpretation.

A snowstorm opening night caused some last-minute cancellations of the otherwise nearly sold-out house. Those who braved the weather loved the play.

Stage 3 paints a hilarious picture
of friendships weathering time

By LEO STUTZIN
MODESTO BEE ARTS EDITOR
Tuesday, February 13, 2001

SONORA -- The nominal subject of "Art," the sizzling comedy that opened Stage 3's season over the weekend, is art. Don't be fooled.

It's about people: three longtime friends struggling to maintain their bonds even though their tastes have gone in different directions. It's the kind of situation that can stress or shatter marriages, as we certainly know; it's a situation that can devastate friendships.

Since the show was written by a young French woman, Yasmina Reza, the tensions are provoked by art. It's a subject Parisians take seriously.

Had it been written by an American, the hilarity could just as easily revolve around favorite football teams. I dig the Niners; you switched your cheers to the Raiders; YOU are an idiot!

The abrasions surface when a 40ish dermatologist named Serge (Lucas McClure) buys an all-white painting. To be precise, call it white-on-white, since some diagonal stripes show cross its four-by-five-foot expanse.

To buddy Marc, who has a traditional landscape hanging on his wall, the painting says zero, and anyone who would buy it must be nuts.

Beyond that, the fact that Serge plunked down $50,000 for this piece of modernist genius -- or gargantuan sheet of toilet paper -- is positively infuriating.

Given that reaction, and given the fact that Serge practically begs for validation of his up-to-the-moment tastes, what's a friend to do?

Ivan, pal No. 3 in this out-of-shape triangle, offers an alternative of sorts. He settles for inoffensive pleasantries when he's not babbling about his own woes: pre-wedding squabbles with his fiancee, her mother, his own mother and his step-mother, all of whom are headstrong and all of whom have deluged him with incompatible ultimatums.

Reza shaped their interplay as a riot of ridiculousness, and British playwright Christopher Hampton rendered it into lively English that plays beautifully.

Both versions racked up the most respected best-play awards around: first the Moliere Award in Paris, then the Olivier in London and finally, in 1998, the Tony on Broadway.

And Stage 3's cast is proving that "Art" can be every bit as funny in rural California as it is in meccas of modern painting.

Don Bilotti is a tightly wound Marc, totally self-assured in his opinions and sizzling in voicing them with sarcasm and indignation; Lucas McClure is Serge, slightly uncertain at heart, but unflinching in defense of his purchase if not of the reasoning behind it; Stuart Pierce is Ivan, who would rather dodge than fight.

They're "The Odd Couple" expanded by one, and almost as funny (and just as susceptible to female adaptation as are Neil Simon's guys).

Bilotti and Lucas are both veteran pros -- card-carrying Equity actors -- and both offer flaw-free performances as the principal antagonists. But it is Pierce, a relative novice from Merced, who steals the show. His Ivan is frantic, neurotic and slightly helpless, and totally human.

Barbara Segal-Mill directed, keeping the comic-dramatic pot boiling throughout the show's 90 minutes.
She also designed the lovely set, which is transformed from one apartment to another and then to a third by the simple change of art on a white-brick wall.

If strong language offends you, take note: Marc, Serge and Ivan are sometimes impolite in their disagreements.