WHAT’S SO FUNNY: ‘Art’ for our sake

“Art” has come to Laguna Beach. It’s at the Laguna Playhouse until November 4. I went and saw it last Saturday night. I had to.

Not just because Andy Barnicle directed it, although Andy is top man at the Playhouse. And not just because one of the three leads is Steve Vinovich, who was terrific in the Playhouse’s fine production of “The Price” a few years back.

It was also because “Art” has a comic premise so good that I find it infuriating.

In “Art,” translated by Christopher Hampton from Yasmina Reza’s French original, the Steve Vinovich character buys an all-white painting for 200,000 francs and proudly shows it to his two best friends, whereupon mayhem ensues.

Writers often tend to dismiss the work of other writers. We sneer so often our upper lips have a permanent wave.

But now and again somebody comes up with a premise which is such a natural that we’re all forced to bow our heads. Not only do we wish we’d thought of it, we all know we should have thought of it. It’s so central to the time.

The idea of artistic taste damaging a relationship has occasionally been explored before. Many years ago James Thurber wrote a lovely story called “The Breaking Up of the Winships,” about a married couple who engage in an escalating argument over who is the greater performer, Greta Garbo or Donald Duck.

But there’s been nothing in the post-modern era to compare, as a bone of artistic contention, with the white-on-white rectangle (“It isn’t ‘white’,” clarifies Vinovich’s character) on display in “Art.”

The performers at the Playhouse (Vinovich, Kyle Colerider-Krugh and John Herzog) are impeccable, the ending unexpected and satisfying, and the tempo snappy. I was amused, edified and touched, and went home furious.

I’d always wished I’d written “The Breaking Up of the Winships” — and for that matter, Thurber’s “Secret Life of Walter Mitty” — but I didn’t blame myself for getting beat on those because they were written before I was born.

However, I had years in which to beat Yasmina Reza to this idea. I almost thought of it several times in the ’80s, but for some reason it never quite occurred to me.

Of course, the premise isn’t everything. You can have a great premise and foul it up. In fact, had she fouled it up I might have been able to do my own version later. But what with “Art” winning the Moliere Award in Paris and the Olivier Award in London and the Tony on Broadway, I fear the idea’s officially taken.

Go see it. The subject matter is a great fit for a town such as ours. And while the art in “Art” may not be art, “Art” definitely is. You’ll wish you’d thought of it.

SHERWOOD KIRALY is a Laguna Beach resident. He has written four novels, three of which were critically acclaimed.