Broadway review “The Collaboration”: Warhol & Basquiat paint by numbers in an artless bio game

The wig gives it away, otherwise we’d have a hard time recognizing Paul Bettany’s fast-talking, extroverted and curious artist character in Anthony McCarten’s. Cooperation like the historical icon of cryptically mumbled monosyllabic words Andy Warhol.

Ah, Bettany isn’t the only one who finds herself in this 1980s paint-by-numbers and highly fictional double biographical play about Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, which opens tonight in a Manhattan Theater Club production at the Samuel J Friedman Theater . premiered on Broadway.

Directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah and inspired by the actual collaboration (at least in terms of artistic relevance) of the aging Warhol and the nascent Basquiat in 1984 – a project presented that much more convincingly and poignantly in the 1996 film. Basquiatwith Jeffrey Wright and, in Warhol’s last show, David Bowie haunting this play like a shadow – Cooperation is a strangely lifeless effort, a failure to capture even a moment of simple artistic inspiration, let alone ignite a collaborative genius.

McCarten, who is also currently on Broadway as the writer of Beautiful sound, the musical by Neil Diamond – a work that betrays similar history-via-wikipedia tendencies – reduces two of the greatest, most artistically influential and culturally influential artists of the late 20s proclamation of art in society, art as personal engagement, art versus commerce, photography versus painting, beauty, fame, heroin and ambition. So many themes, so few believable or original thoughts.

“I broke a wall between business and art,” says Bettany as Warhol, who passes for small talk Cooperation. “All artists must be listened to with humor,” says Basquiat, played by the usually wonderful Jeremy Pope, as a collection of twitches, distant looks and lilting cadences suggests an animated version of the historical Basquiat. “All the gloomy bastards must be killed.”

In the play’s first act — in which art dealer Bruno Bischofberger (Erik Jensen) arms the two opposite, reluctant artists into a collaboration for the sake of posterity, careers and lots of money — Warhol and Basquiat are mostly found in Warhol’s studio, in circles , like each other Boxers waiting for the first punch.

Regardless of the fact that Bischofberger’s actual role in the historical encounter was far less important, or that the animosity expressed by the two artists seems more like a dramaturgical setup for the de rigueur reconciliation in Act II. This type of fiction is always acceptable if it adds loop or some sort of spiritual truth to a piece. It doesn’t do that here either. (Perhaps Kwei-Armah and McCarten will have better luck with the film adaptation they are working on).

Act Two begins many months later, with Warhol and Basquiat nearing the completion of their multiple collaborations and developing a genuine love for each other. The old man worries about the younger man’s heroin use (although he plays it down – “You’re not my first junkie” – while Basquiat encourages the scarred Warhol to do something close to the self-acceptance he often (too often, to be dramatic ) believable ) the life-changing recording of Valerie Solanas. (Again, McCarten gives his Warhol a self-revealed candor that seems at odds with the historical figure. The art-loft sets, designed by Anna Fleischle, who also designed the costumes, lend the production a much-needed authenticity).

In the end, the two artists make a sort of peace with their opposing worldviews and artistic stances – albeit a freak-out in Act II, in which Basquiat mourns the death of a friend, as a kind of voodoo long-distance murder through Warhol’s camera looks ridiculous. is. A little help is Krysta Rodriguez as one of Basquiat’s friends, full of anger, disappointment, longing and co-dependence.

McCarten, as evidenced by this piece, his book for the Neil Diamond musical and his screenplay for the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody has a knack for finding the man beneath the celebrity, but just as often narrows down the bumps and sharp spots that made her worthy of our attention in the first place. At least jukebox musicals can use familiar tunes to bring life back to life in a way that no scare wig or cartoon gestures can. CooperationWhen all is painted and done, it’s a jukebox musical without the music.