Sarah Paulson, Goldie Hawn, Jodie Foster, Rose Byrne, and More Gather to Celebrate the Broadway Opening of Art
Art can divide as easily as it connects. This is one of the quandaries at the heart of Art, Yasmina Reza’s smash-hit 1994 play about three men whose friendship is tested when one buys a contentious painting. Yet there was no division over this work of art last night, as a happy assemblage of stars gathered at the Music Box Theatre on 45th Street to celebrate the premiere of the play’s buzzy revival, starring Bobby Cannavale, Neil Patrick Harris, and James Corden. Goldie Hawn, Jodie Foster, Rose Byrne, Paul Rudd, Sarah Paulson, Victor Garber—who starred in the original 1998 Broadway production—and Andrea Martin, with her date Nathan Lane, all turned out to revisit the current state of Art. Inside the theater, anticipation bubbled as Chris Rock gladhanded before taking his seat, and Barry Diller chatted with Mark Conseulos as the lights fell and the curtain rose.
Directed by Scott Ellis, the piece, translated by Christopher Hampton from its original French, is a compact (around 100 nimble minutes) meditation on taste and friendship. Serge (Harris), a well-to-do Parisian dermatologist, buys an abstract painting for $300,000, much to the vexation of his classically minded friend, Marc (Cannavale), who has a traditional landscape of Carcassonne hanging in his apartment. Then there’s Yvan (Corden), a buffoonish stationery salesman, who variously placates and agitates his two friends.
Serge’s new painting, a barely discernible melange of white brushstrokes, is but a fuse that ignites lingering resentments about class, women, and philosophy among the trio. Suddenly finding oneself on the opposing side—whether the subject is art, or gasp, politics—as a longtime friend, is a predicament that Ellis finds as timely as ever, three decades on. “We’re in a tough situation in this country, and listening and having disagreements doesn’t seem to be possible,” said the director before the show. “It tests a friendship: can you survive it if someone disagrees with you? Politics, religion, art, all of that. Is love of a friend going to carry you?”
Watching these three friends make a mess, then attempt to clean it up, is the joy of the play, made all the more satisfying in the deft hands of Corden, Cannavale, and Harris. Corden’s Yvan, initially a simpering third wheel, becomes the play’s buoyant center as the evening progresses. His breathless delivery of a barnstorming monologue about his character’s impending nuptials nearly brought the audience to its feet, and recalled his rollicking, Tony-winning performance in One Man, Two Guvnors.
After the curtain fell to wild applause, the audience decamped a few blocks away to the Bryant Park Grill, where congratulations and bravos flowed like Champagne. Broadway legend Ben Vereen posed for pictures with fans, while Corden guffawed with Paulson, who led a line of eager well-wishers that snaked around the Grill’s pavillion. Harris caught up with the comedian Bill Burr while Hawn held court at a nearby table a few feet from Foster, obliging a photographer’s flash.
With the Beaux-Arts columns of the New York Public Library towering over the sleek interior of the Grill, and the abstract Hunt Slonem bird mural that wraps around its dining room, the mashup of classic and modern style was an apt picture for the evening’s themes, though without the bickering—life blissfully not imitating Art.
- Photo: Getty Images1/15
Sarah Paulson
- Photo: Getty Images2/15
Rose Byrne
