There’s
a little ritual that Denis Lawson has initiated alongside his fellow cast
members of the current tour of Yasmina Reza’s play, Art, which arrives in
Glasgow next week.
“Within
three minutes of the curtain coming down I’ve made three vodka martinis,” says
a jaunty-sounding Lawson. “Then we sit down and have a little chat.”
The
image of Lawson, Nigel Havers and Stephen Tompkinson – all gentleman thespians
of a certain vintage - gathering together for post-show libations in such a
civilised fashion says much about the calibre of Reza’s play, as well as the trickle-down
sense of bonhomie it has inspired among its cast.
“We
do get on extraordinary well,” purrs the now 70-year-old Lawson in a still discernible
Perthshire burr. “Which is lucky. We’ve all known each other a little bit from
working together over the years, but as soon as we got into the rehearsal room,
we all just clicked straight away.”
Given
that Art is all about the strains and pains of friendship, the chemistry which
appear to exist between such a trio of screen-friendly faces is indeed a
blessing. The play helps.
Art
first appeared in Paris in 1994, just as the late twentieth century rise of
conceptual art was causing a fresh stir, primarily by way of a new wave of contemporary
artists who made the headlines and swelled the increasingly lucrative art
market. The play was first seen in London in Christopher Hampton’s English
translation two years later in a production co-produced by Sean Connery, and
which ran for eight years, picking up an Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in
1997.
The
trio onstage throughout the play’s 90-minute duration – Serge, Marc and Yvan –
have their friendship of 15 years threatened when Serge splashes out a not so
small fortune on a painting. Rather than a common-or-garden still life or
portrait, Serge has embraced the shock of the new by way of a white-painted
canvas with just a few white lines of detail added in. While Serge enjoys his chic
and forward-thinking investment, Lawson’s character Marc is a cynic who
furiously dismisses both the painting and the purchase. Poor Yvan, meanwhile,
attempts to appease these parallel extremes of thought by agreeing with both of
his friends.
“Marc
thinks all this is appalling,” says Lawson. “He’s a certain kind of
intellectual that’s held in very high regard in France. Or at least he sees
himself as an intellectual, anyway. Whether he is or not is a different matter.
He’s also quite highly strung and neurotic, so when his friend Serge buys this
white painting, he’s absolutely horrified. Then poor Yvan, who Steve plays, and
who is pretty hapless, gets caught in the middle of this horrendous argument.
“It’s
quite explosive, and even though the play is quite short, it’s very intense for
us to do. You can’t let it go for a second, and that’s very satisfying to do. As
a play, it’s more about friendship than art, and male friendship in particular.
It’s also about how particular actions address the issue of how we see things,
and see objects. You can like one painting, and another you don’t, and from
that it becomes about a much wider perception of things. I first saw it
twenty-odd years ago when Ken Stott was in it, but when I sat down to read it
for this production, it was even clearer that it’s such a fabulous piece of
work.”
Art
marks Lawson’s first appearance on a Glasgow stage for what he reckons might
well be forty years. That was at the old Close Theatre Club, the hotbed of
1960s studio-based experimentalism that formed part of the Citizens Theatre
before being destroyed by fire in 1973. Lawson also appeared at the Lyceum in
Edinburgh, and at the Roundhouse and Almost Free theatres in London, while
early TV roles saw him cast in the likes of Dr Finlay’s Casebook. Onstage, in
1983, Lawson played the title role in a revival of 1920s musical Mr Cinders for
a mammoth 527 performances.
“That
was big for me,” says Lawson. “I’ve done a lot of musical theatre, but I equate
Mr Cinders a lot with why I became an actor.”
By
that time, Lawson had appeared in all three original Star Wars films, a
franchise his nephew Ewan McGregor, who he directed in a TV film version of In
McEwan’s short story, Solid Geometry, later joined. Also in 1983, Lawson added
his louche presence to Bill Forsyth’s film, Local Hero.
“That
was probably the most enjoyable job I ever had,” says Lawson, who expresses
delight at the recent announcement by the Lyceum in Edinburgh that a stage
version will be produced there. “It seems to have this extraordinary life to it.”
Just
prior to Art, Lawson directed Roy Williams’ play, The Firm, at Hampstead
Theatre.
“It’s
about black gang culture in South London,” Lawson explains, “and when I was
asked to do it, I said, guys, I’m a white, middle class Scottish guy, I’m not
sure I’m the right person to do this. It was another play about friendship
among an older generation.”
One of
Lawson’s most recent small-screen appearances was in A Quiet Night In, a 2014
episode of Inside No. 9, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s compendium of dark-edged
playlets for which the word sit-com would be a far too simplistic epithet. A
Quiet Night In was an ingeniously choreographed and dialogue-free affair, in
which two cat burglars attempt to steal an expensive painting from the luxury
home of millionaire Gerald, played by Lawson.
As
the painting is passed around, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the
masterpiece at the centre of Art. This
in turn recalls American artist Robert Rauschenberg’s three-panelled White
Painting, which caused a similar stir in 1951. As did pop artist Richard
Hamilton’s cover for the 1968 double album by the Beatles that became known as
the White Album.
“I
rather like contemporary art,” Lawson says with something akin to mischief in
his voice. “I quite like Jackson Pollock, and have a real gut reaction to it,
so it does whatever it does to me.”
Jack
the Dripper’s wildly physical abstract expressionist paintings appeal to Lawson
almost as much as the work of Gerhard Richter, the self-styled German
surrealist, whose fusion of photography and painting has seen him exhibit all
over the world. This included a show at Tate Modern in 2011. Richter is also responsible
for a series of abstract works, including a 1960s series of grey monochromes
that again sound not unlike the painting bought by Serge in Art.
“When
I saw Richter’s work it blew me away,” says Lawson. “He does all this wonderful
photo-realism, but drags it through a gauze of abstraction.”
Lawson
may be a fan of Richter, but what, one wonders, might Marc make of it all?
“Marc
might quite like his photo-realism,” says Lawson, “but he’d hate the abstracts,
or what he saw as being abstract. But doing this play reminds me of doing The
Man in the Iron Mask, which was one of the first movies I ever did.”
Lawson
is referring to Mike Newell’s 1977 version of Alexandre Dumas’ novel, which
starred Richard Chamberlain, Patrick McGoohan and Jenny Agutter.
“Ralph
Richardson was in it as well, and as a young actor, I’d seen him onstage with
John Gielgud in Harold Pinter’s play, No Man’s Land. I said to Ralph Richardson
that I loved it, but that I didn’t know what it meant. In his old actor’s voice,
he said, well, it’s like a vase. You look at the vase, and you either like the
vase, or you don’t like the vase, and that’s like Art.”
Art,
Theatre Royal, Glasgow, April 9-14.
The Herald, April 5th 2018
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