Art

What exactly is ‘art’? Yasmina Reza’s cult comedy classic uses that as the starting point for a caustic examination of the potentially fragile architecture of friendship. One of the three friends has just bought a very expensive painting – it’s all white. To another friend the painting is a joke, but do they have the right standards to judge it? The third friend doesn’t really have much of an opinion but get pulled into the disagreement. They square off over the canvas, using it as an excuse to relentlessly batter one another over various failures …

Spoiler alert: it’s not really about art per se – the white painting is just the catalyst, but it does play a significant part in the denouement …

Jihane Tehini and Francesca Bizzarri direct. The original had three men as the friends, but gender isn’t especially relevant to the script and they have cast three women – Leila Oggar, Arezoo Sharifi and Jihane Tehini herself.

Last November, Complices had a sell-out run at the Junction for an excellent production of Neil Simon’s Rumors (which takes a similarly comic look at human relationships albeit from a rather different angle). On that basis alone we’d vote for this production, but in any case Reza’s play is cleverly paced, thoughtful, heartfelt and ultimately generous. Recommended.

It’s in French with English surtitles. There are further shows on 31 January and 1 February.