{"id":2027782,"date":"2025-09-17T02:02:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T02:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2027782"},"modified":"2025-09-17T02:02:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T02:02:15","slug":"james-corden-and-neil-patrick-harris-drone-on-about-paintings-in-retro-broadway-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/james-corden-and-neil-patrick-harris-drone-on-about-paintings-in-retro-broadway-comedy\/","title":{"rendered":"James Corden and Neil Patrick Harris drone on about paintings in retro Broadway comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2025%2F09%2Fnewspress-collage-1wx9vfd83-1758057680902.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall%261758043420\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--review alignleft\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n\t\t<span class=\"inline-module--review__eyebrow subsection-heading-semi__label\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tTheater review\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"inline-module--review__title subsection-heading-semi\">\n\t\t\tART\t\t<\/h2>\n<div class=\"rating\">\n<div class=\"rating__stars\">\n<div class=\"rating__star rating__star--filled\"><?php \/**\n * Review star.\n * \n * @package nyp-editor\n *\/\n\n??><\/p>\n<style><![CDATA[\n\t.review-block-star {\n\t\t--review-block-star--empty-color: #585858;\n\t\t--review-block-star--fill-color: #000;\n\t}\n]]><\/style>\n<p><svg class=\"icon-star review-block-star\" stroke=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\" fill=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\" stroke-width=\"0\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" height=\"13px\" width=\"13px\">\n\t<defs>\n\t\t<lineargradient id=\"half-gradient\">\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"50%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"0%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 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stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"0%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 15.443c-.386.198-.824-.149-.746-.592l.83-4.73L.173 6.765c-.329-.314-.158-.888.283-.95l4.898-.696L7.538.792c.197-.39.73-.39.927 0l2.184 4.327 4.898.696c.441.062.612.636.283.95l-3.523 3.356.83 4.73c.078.443-.36.79-.746.592L8 13.187l-4.389 2.256z\">\n\t<\/path>\n<\/svg>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"rating__star rating__star--empty\"><?php \/**\n * Review star.\n * \n * @package nyp-editor\n *\/\n\n??><\/p>\n<style><![CDATA[\n\t.review-block-star {\n\t\t--review-block-star--empty-color: #585858;\n\t\t--review-block-star--fill-color: #000;\n\t}\n]]><\/style>\n<p><svg class=\"icon-star review-block-star\" stroke=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\" fill=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\" stroke-width=\"0\" viewbox=\"0 0 16 16\" height=\"13px\" width=\"13px\">\n\t<defs>\n\t\t<lineargradient id=\"half-gradient\">\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"50%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--fill-color)\"\/>\n\t\t\t<stop stop-opacity=\"1\" offset=\"0%\" stop-color=\"var(--review-block-star--empty-color)\"\/>\n\t\t<\/lineargradient>\n\t<\/defs>\n\t<path d=\"M3.612 15.443c-.386.198-.824-.149-.746-.592l.83-4.73L.173 6.765c-.329-.314-.158-.888.283-.95l4.898-.696L7.538.792c.197-.39.73-.39.927 0l2.184 4.327 4.898.696c.441.062.612.636.283.95l-3.523 3.356.83 4.73c.078.443-.36.79-.746.592L8 13.187l-4.389 2.256z\">\n\t<\/path>\n<\/svg>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Ninety minutes with no intermission at the Music Box Theatre.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Much in the way that Serge\u2019s two best friends cannot fathom why he purchased a totally white painting for $300,000, I fail to understand the enduring popularity of the play \u201cArt.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>French writer Yasmina Reza\u2019s 1998 whine-and-cheese comedy, which opened at the Music Box Theatre on Tuesday night in an\u00a0askew revival starring Neil Patrick Harris, James Corden and Bobby Cannavale, remains a slim, one-joke, pseudo-intellectual affair that gratingly and exhaustingly works to send up fellow pseudo intellectuals.<\/p>\n<p>Think of it as a sword fight with pinkies. <\/p>\n<p>And to<em> un peu<\/em> extent, \u201cArt\u201d\u2019s velvet-soft satire succeeds. As the lights fade out at the end, the audience is in collective, unspoken agreement that Serge, Yvan and Marc are ridiculous, trivial, self-absorbed <em>je-suis<\/em> jerks that no sane person could bear to spend five minutes with.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>James Corden, Neil Patrick Harris and Bobby Cannavale star in \u201cArt\u201d on Broadway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter\">\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--more inline-module--columnist inline-module--more--thirds\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<h2 class=\"inline-module__heading subsection-heading subsection-heading--single-line \">\n\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"subsection-heading__sub\">Johnny Oleksinski<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Not that the show excitingly builds to any such conclusion. We have them clocked after just a couple of scenes. There are some early giggles about Serge\u2019s pricey purchase (\u201cHow much?\u201d \u201cThree hundred thousand.\u201d \u201cVery reasonable.\u201d), and then the plot devolves into the white noise of shapeless academic squawking.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Just as in \u201cGod of Carnage\u201d (which is much funnier), Reza crafts an amusing upper-middle-class situation and then willy-nilly shoves character development into the butler\u2019s kitchen. In \u201cArt,\u201d escalating drama gets the brush too.<\/p>\n<p>She goes all-in on faux-wit, though. The pretentious trio drone on about modernism, Seneca, the poet Paul Val\u00e9ry, deconstruction, homeopathy, therapy, partners and do-nothing jobs. Some comments tickle, and many are banal. Scott Ellis\u2019 direction \u2014 on David Rockwell\u2019s set that\u2019s spare as the canvas \u2014 is both physically rigid and narratively unruly.<\/p>\n<p>In the second half, nothing seems to matter whatsoever.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Cannavale plays Marc, the eldest of the trio. <span class=\"credit\">Matthew Murphy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Every word and action is unnatural, like the actors have yardsticks down the backs of their shirts. Much of the stiffness is baked in, of course. Being that the script about snobs was originally French, and has been translated by British writer Christopher Hampton, even affectations have affectations.<\/p>\n<p>All the while, a 25-year friendship is falling apart over disagreements on the controversial painting. However, it\u2019s awfully hard to accept that the old chums are parting ways when the performers click like they first met that night at 7:59 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Playing Serge, Harris is the most sensibly cast of the stars. He often plays humorous sophisticates and it\u2019s not farfetched that he might stare at a blank canvas with a nice Burgundy.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Corden can be very entertaining, at the expense of character and connection. <span class=\"credit\">Matthew Murphy<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The other two are not so convincing. Cannavale, as eldest Marc, comes off like a cop bought a Hugh Hefner smoking jacket at a Halloween store, and Corden, bumbling about as Yvan, performs \u201cOne Painting, Two Guvnors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The former \u201cLate Late Show\u201d host gets the biggest speech \u2014 in length and weight \u2014 as he embarks on a frantic rant about the pain the verbiage of his wedding invitations has caused. <\/p>\n<p>Even though it turns into an indecipherable ramble midway through, the crowd applauded as if they\u2019d just witnessed a Carpool Monologue. Unsurprisingly, the actor is highly watchable. Yet at Corden\u2019s most entertaining, he\u2019s his least connected.<\/p>\n<p>So, Reza\u2019s play of petty bickering makes my eyes glaze over. But plenty of people, including former Post critics, have lapped it up over the years. Such is \u201cArt.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theater review ART Ninety minutes with no intermission at the Music Box Theatre. Much in the way that Serge\u2019s two best friends cannot fathom why he purchased a totally white painting for $300,000, I fail to understand the enduring popularity of the play \u201cArt.\u201d\u00a0 French writer Yasmina Reza\u2019s 1998 whine-and-cheese comedy, which opened at the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2027783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[25538,345013,344468,21741,22467,373610,350667,24047,345886],"class_list":["post-2027782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-actors","tag-bobby-cannavale","tag-broadway","tag-entertainment","tag-james-corden","tag-neil-patrick-harris","tag-plays","tag-theater","tag-theater-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/James-Corden-and-Neil-Patrick-Harris-drone-on-about-paintings.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2027782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2027782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2027783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2027782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2027782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2027782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}