RECOMMENDED
The bohemian world rejects mainstream competition and greed, devoting itself to truth, beauty, freedom and love. And anybody who believes that has never tried to make a living selling art.
In Mark Ravenhill’s chronicle of the seamy British art world, four wild-living artists (Antonio Brunetti, Todd Michael Kiech, Meghan Reardon and Anne Sheridan Smith), a tight-knit clique since art school, detail their relationship with a more successful friend. The four clash with jealousy and ambition as their unity frays.
Director Liz Carlin Metz’s use of contact improvisation movement in the staging doesn’t always depict the necessary joy/anger/frustration and the dialects wander a tad, but the performers successfully capture the sordid business of art as they elbow their way to the front of the pack. Courtney O’Neill’s empty pool set and Michael Stanfill’s compelling projections accentuate the artists’ hollowness as they fail to find truth or beauty and forget love completely. (Lisa Buscani)
Vitalist Theatre at the Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 North Lincoln, (773)404-7336. Through September 30. (Half-Priced Tickets)
