Best friends Sam (Mateo Parodi, left) and Jack (Billy Cosgrove, right) fantasize about dating the perfect woman (as embodied by Diletta Guglielmi) in Susannah Dalton’s The Importance of Doing Art.
“Art,” Oscar Wilde pithily postulated, “is useless.” Susannah Dalton’s The Importance of Doing Art directly challenges this aesthetic maxim. Far from being futile, the comedy asserts, art’s true purpose is to serve as an allurement for single-male schlubs and slacker underachievers to attract beautiful, sexually available women. Simply put, art is a chick magnet.
Things—and people—are not always what they seem as artist Rita (Kaitlin Ruby, left) and art connoisseur Vanisha (Maite Uzal) quickly learn.
The play riffs on Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest not just in its title but through its use of mistaken identities and the resultant romantic complications for two pairs of lovers. The central character Jack (Billy Cosgrove)—perhaps named in homage to Wilde’s Jack Worthing—is willfully unkempt and believes that he has found the formula for untying the Gordian knot that has dogged heterosexual men for eternity.
One night in a bar, Jack witnessed the fawning attention a seemingly “ideal woman” (embodied by Diletta Guglielmi) bestowed upon a thoroughly disinterested and unattractive man. He explains the shock to his friend, Sam (Mateo Parodi): “This guy, who by any decent standards, would be perceived as ugly, hideous even, has this beautiful woman. And not only has her, has her under his thumb.” The source of this incomprehensible power, Jack eventually discovers, is simple: the hideous man is an artist (Jacopo Costantini).
Posing as artists, and with Sam assuming the name “Art,” the two friends begin to court Rita (Kaitlin Ruby) and Vanisha (Maite Uzal). The women are instantly attracted, believing the men can grant them entrée into the rarefied art world. Predictably, the ruse leads to farcical results. When the couples end up at a gallery opening, Jack and Sam find themselves spectacularly out of their depths.
Directed with requisite verve by José Ignacio Vivero (who also designed the clever and resourceful sets, while Miguel Valderrama provided the quick-change lighting), the actors work hard to land the gags and make the sexist characterizations amusing rather than off-putting. Unfortunately, the writing lets them down: the jokes are well-worn, and some of the comic business makes little sense. For instance, an extended bit involves a cater waiter serving escargots. Jack nibbles on it, spits it out in disgust, and rails against the French and their perverse penchant for eating snails. Since when are escargots treated as a finger food that can be served like a pigs-in-a-blanket?
Posing as an artist named Art, Sam describes a high-concept project for an intrigued Vanisha. Photographs by Carol Rosegg.
Notably, the satirical jabs at the supposed banality and vacuousness of contemporary art and artists feel tired and overdone. This cliché is epitomized during the second act’s art show, which consists of a series of empty picture frames. The Artist announces: “These are pieces beyond intellectualization, and I ask you to open yourselves. Only the truly wise and brilliant will understand deeply what I’m communicating in these pieces.” This scene falls flat because the premise is so exhausted. Yasmina Reza’s Art, currently running on Broadway, successfully generates far more humor debating the merits of a white-painted canvas than Dalton achieves in trying to convey the profundity of an empty picture frame.
Even the Wildean parallels seem strained. In Earnest, Gwendolen’s fixation on the name “Ernest” is a critique of Victorian ideals, concluding that “the only really safe name is Ernest.” Dalton’s women, on the other hand, are drawn to the perceived passion behind the name “Art.” Rita’s over-the-top declaration—“There's something about that name. Art ... Art ... Arrrrrrt!”—is too on the nose.
Jack’s parting words, that “art should be the most beautifully fabricated lie,” clearly echo Wilde’s dictum that “Lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of Art.” While The Importance of Being Art aspires to Wildean wit, the two-act comedy more often feels like a retread of a Three’s Company episode. Arguably, those sitcom writers artfully accomplished far more in less than 30 minutes—commercial breaks included.
The Importance of Doing Art, presented by PinProductions and María Teresa Uzal Rodríguez Producciones, runs through Nov. 23 at 59E59 Theaters (59 E. 59th St.). Evening performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; matinees are at 2:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and more information, visit 59e59.org.
Playwright and Costume Design: Susannah Dalton
Director & Scenic Design: José Ignacio Vivero
Lighting Design: Miguel Valderrama
