A blank canvas. That’s how friendships often begin—until someone spends $300,000 on what looks like a “white painting with white lines.” In the Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning Art, three friends discover that aesthetic differences can reveal uncomfortable truths.
Reza’s play won the Tony Award when it premiered on Broadway in 1998. A starry revival cast of Bobby Cannavale, Neil Patrick Harris, and James Corden revisits the work under the direction of Scott Ellis (Pirates! The Penzance Musical).
The painting becomes a framing—or, as Harris’s condescending Serge might say, a frameless one—for examining privilege, friendship, societal norms, and honesty.
Marc (Cannavale) is incensed by what he considers a frivolous purchase. But the real price the trio pays is the increasingly messy palette of verbal jabs they splatter upon one another like Jackson Pollock hovering over a canvas with a stick and a gallon of paint.
Corden’s Yvan carries the real emotional weight, reluctantly marrying while stuck selling stationery and admitting, “My professional life has always been a failure.” Barging in late for dinner plans, he rants about whose names will appear on the wedding invitation, a complication arising from divorced and remarried parents.
The rousing monologue comes midway through a 90-minute intermissionless performance, offering a much-needed variation to the recurring semantics that dominate Reza’s play.
David Rockwell’s minimalist scenic design in muted grey, punctuated by swift scene changes and Jen Schriever’s equally crisp lighting, nudges Art toward entertaining. However, some may be just as happy watching the famed video of Banksy’s “Girl With Balloon” shredded after it was auctioned in 2018 for $1.4 million—just a bit more than Art made during its first full week of previews.
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Fast facts: ‘Art’
- Music Box Theatre, 239 West 45th Street
- Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission
- Runs through December 21, 2025
1MC takeaway — Bobby Cannavale, Neil Patrick Harris, and James Corden bring the star power, but that white canvas often takes center stage. Those interested in the real deal should check out Robert Rauchenberg’s “White Paintings” series (1951).
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