James Corden Returns to Broadway in ‘Art,’ Sharing the Stage With Neil Patrick Harris and Bobby Cannavale

Before James Corden was a late-night television host, the English performer and writer was introduced to Broadway audiences through a pair of London-based productions, “The History Boys” and “One Man, Two Guvnors.” The latter, a show that was brilliantly bawdy and spectacularly silly in the best British tradition, earned Mr. Corden a Tony Award in 2012 and established him as a master of a certain kind of comedic performance — broad, physical, and unabashedly goofy, yet rooted in and sustained by a razor-sharp wit.The play that brings Mr. Corden back to Broadway is a very different showcase for that prowess. First produced at Paris in 1994, Yasmina Reza’s “Art” made its English-language debut, in a translation by Christopher Hampton, two years later at London; in 1998, that version arrived on our shores, in a production starring Alan Alda, Victor Garber, and Alfred Molina.That staging earned Ms. Reza — whose thoughtful, biting comedies also include “God of Carnage” — the first of two Tonys. During its run, a succession of notable actors replaced the original stars in its three juicy roles, among them Brian Cox, Joe Morton, and the late Buck Henry, in his Broadway debut. In this first Broadway revival, Mr. Corden is joined by a pair of stage and screen veterans whose chops and sheer presence make them deserving of such company. Neil Patrick Harris is cast as Serge, a dermatologist and contemporary art enthusiast who has just purchased a painting, for a huge sum, that will become a key source of contention.The piece looks innocuous enough; as one of Serge’s longtime friends, an aeronautical engineer named Marc — played by Bobby Cannavale — describes it, “It’s a canvas about five feet by four: white. The background is white and if you screw up your eyes, you can make out some fine white diagonal lines.”It’s the painting’s lack of content or character, in Marc’s eyes, that gets his goat, and plants the initial seeds of conflict. As Serge explains, “Marc’s an intelligent enough guy … but he’s one of those new-style intellectuals, who are not only enemies of modernism, but seem to take some sort of incomprehensible pride in running it down.”Mr. Corden’s character, Yvon, who completes the trio of buddies, is introduced as the least confrontational and, it would seem, the least accomplished. “My professional life has always been a failure,” he tells us, noting he has just started working as a sales agent for a stationery business — a company run, we’ll learn, by his fiancée’s uncle.As Marc explains, with characteristic condescension, “Yvan’s a very tolerant guy.” What the new-style intellectual doesn’t seem to fully appreciate is that beneath the humility and people-pleasing instincts that would seem to make Yvan a natural peacemaker lies a well of suppressed frustration — and during this one-act play, it comes pouring forth, crashing hilariously against Marc’s and Serge’s own troubled waters.Under Scott Ellis’s brisk direction, all three actors bring predictable punch to Ms. Reza’s study of the underexplored tensions and pretensions that can disrupt male friendship within a certain milieu. Mr. Cannavale lends an effortless bravado to Marc, the most patently arrogant of the pals, while Mr. Harris’s Serge has a sly, quicksilver quality that makes him magnetic throughout. (David Rockwell’s suitably slick, stylish scenic design proves similarly alluring.)Yet Mr. Corden ultimately makes the biggest impression, and gets the biggest laughs; this is due in part to his sumptuous role, which includes a lengthy monologue that finds Yvan detailing an “insoluble problem” concerning his wedding invitation. At the preview I attended, the bit earned a well-deserved and nearly show-stopping round of applause. There are also flashes of poignance in “Art,” and they’re mined just as adroitly as you would expect with performers of this caliber involved. It’s lovely to have all three of them back on the New York stage, and in a vehicle worthy of their gifts.

James Corden Returns to Broadway in ‘Art,’ Sharing the Stage With Neil Patrick Harris and Bobby Cannavale

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