The Old Masters

"You'd be surprised how many people want to hang an electric chair on their living-room wall," legendary artist Andy Warhol once remarked about his series of paintings of the execution device, adding, "specially [sic] if the background color matches the drapes." This one pithy observation from the prince of pop art acidly summarizes the contradictory impulses of the modern art world: an attraction to danger and controversy, but not if it detracts from the interior decorator's aesthetic.

Possibly taking his cue from that quote, Sam Marks puts the relationship between a painter and an interior decorator at the center of his new play, The Old Masters, now making its New York debut at The Flea Theater. Marks has a lot to say about our identity-driven culture, in which the quality of the art is far less important than the buzz factor surrounding the artist. Unfortunately, he's hasn't yet found the most effective way to say it.

Ben (Rory Kulz) dreams of being a great painter. Sadly, a failed gallery show discouraged him from pursuing his career further. He now works as an art lecturer and lives in an emerging neighborhood (probably in Brooklyn) with his wife, Olive (Alesandra Nahodil), an interior decorator working on creating their dream home. They're also expecting their first child. Ben is suddenly thrown back into the art world when Lara (Adelind Horan) shows up bearing a box of paintings. They were created by Ben's old friend and Lara's boyfriend, Henry, a chronic drunk who disappeared during the coldest week of the year and hasn't been seen since. Lara hopes Ben can use his connections to get Henry's work in a gallery. Ben has a hunch that the mystery surrounding Henry's whereabouts might be enough to drum up interest. He also wonders how his life became so thoroughly uninteresting to the people he most wants to impress.

The Old Masters overflows with Millennial angst. As his bohemian post-graduate years cede to a teaching job and a mortgage, Ben looks for ways to sabotage a life he doesn't want. This includes an attempt at some very junior varsity infidelity. Kulz is perfectly slimy as Ben, lamely hitting on Lara as he swills his bourbon. Olive pretends to sleep in the next room. No matter how unlikable he becomes, however, you can't help but feel bad for him as he barrels toward an epic quarter-life crisis. Certainly it's easy to pity a man who feels intense jealousy toward a guy (Henry) who is probably dead.

Of course, we feel worse for the increasingly pregnant Olive, who has to deal with the repercussions. Nahodil gives a sympathetic portrayal, gently prodding her husband to be an adult. No one could accuse her of being a harpy, just a very poor judge of character.

Horan does her best with a character whose motives seem to change with the wind. Is she into Ben or not? Is this all about money? What exactly is her attraction to self-destructive men like Henry all about? In Lara, Marks has written a rather generic hipster-girl stereotype. Costume designer Travis Alexandra Boatright outfits her thus, with floral high-waist shorts and dangly costume jewelry. We get a sense of who she is, but we never really understand her.

With plastic drops, IKEA furniture, and paint swatches on the walls, Andrew Diaz's set gives us an immediate sense of place: This old house is a work in progress. Unfortunately, so is the play that takes place in it.

While The Old Masters dances around some very compelling subjects (the arbitrary nature of commercial art, the collision of ambition with reality), Marks' script suffers from a lack of specificity. There are too many holes and quick-fix contrivances. We never learn how Lara met Henry and why she stayed. Nor do we hear much about the origins of Ben and Olive's relationship. Unscrupulous contractors named "the Randolph Brothers" play a crucial role in an anticlimactic Dickensian plot twist. All of this results in a final scene that resembles an airplane circling the runway, refusing to land.

Director Brandon Stock has led this three-person cast to exciting and committed performances, but it's not enough to pick up the slack in the script. The Old Masters has the potential to be a great play, if only the artist would return to the canvas and fill in some details with a finer brush.