Wherefore Art?

Stratford Ct.’s Square One theater, whose offerings are usually anything but square, is ending its 2011-12 season with Art. Like the off white canvas its plot draws from, Art has never gone out of style. The Elm Shakespeare company did Art (in an actual gallery setting) around a year ago, and the play’s still a staple on college campuses.

Yazmina Reza’ s comical three- character aesthetic argument will never again have the ubiquity it enjoyed when it first trickled down to regional and small theaters in the late ’90s—I recall reviewing three productions in the same month. Art’s resurgence now owes as much to the playwright’s staying power as it does to the play’s. Reza’s kept writing lively literate and intellectual shows that are embraced by upper middle class audiences. The most recent is God of Carnage—watch out when rights to that one become more commonly available.

The glory of Art is that small companies can produce it cheaply, market it easily, and use it to reward some of their regular players. The surefire roles can be carried off by old actors as easily as young, by the dumpy as deftly as by the handsome, by the wacky as readily by the intense. I have yet to see a production where a woman was cast in one of the roles, though I understand that’s been done successfully a few times. I have seen an extraordinary range of talent kill in this show.

Square One artistic director Tom Holehan’s got a trio of company veterans on hand: Alexander Kulcsar (who’s done comedy, melodrama and murder mystery for the company in the past, and also designed Art’s set), Pat Leo (who has a dozen Square One shows on his reseume) and Dan Arenovski (three previous Square One credits and counting). That kind of stage cameraderie should really help a show that’s about longheld (if rapidly fraying) friendships.

Art runs May 13-28 at the Stratford Theatre, 2422 Main St., Stratford. Tix and info here.