Star of stage and screen, Damon Herriman, shares his thoughts about the thrill of the live performance and how working with close friends can bring out the best in a densely comedic play
ART is a razor-sharp, fast paced comedy that follows three long-time mates whose decades-long friendship begins to fracture when one of them buys a ridiculously expensive painting. Egos are bruised and chaos ensues as the other two friends don’t just question his taste – they question everything. Originally set in Paris, Yasmina Reza’s Tony, Olivier and Moliere Award winning 1994 play translates beautifully into English and the adapted setting.
Performed by Damon Herriman, Richard Roxburgh and Toby Schmitz, the show has been a huge hit in Sydney and Brisbane and is currently in Melbourne before ending the tour in Adelaide later this month. Herriman’s Serge is at the centre of ART, being the one that’s bought the ridiculous painting of a completely white canvas – except for a few feint lines that are a shade of slightly off-white
Known for both his stage and screen roles, Herriman’s been in the Australian entertainment industry since childhood and received his first Logie nomination when he was 11. Chatting about the difference between preparing a role for screen vs the stage, we talked about the raw and constantly evolving nature of live performance.
“With film and TV, the first time you’ve said the lines on camera, it sort of sets it in stone, whereas with theatre; it’s never set in stone until your first performance. And even then, it’s never completely set.”
Roxburgh, Schmitz and Herriman exude the familiarity and chemistry of long-term friends, and Herriman puts some of this success down to the immediate comfort and sense of mutual respect felt in the rehearsal room. “I think it helps in the case of this cast, that Richard, Toby and I are all friends. Not having three strangers needing to pretend to have had a twenty-year friendship really helped going into it because we have known each other for that length of time.”
He notes that, “the three of us haven’t worked together as a group before, (I worked with Richard briefly and have known Toby a while) so just to work with two actors who are so good and so lovely – it doesn’t get better.”
Of his characters’ development since he first started working on the role, he says, “you always come in with an idea of what you’re going to do, and with a play, you have that nice process of several weeks of finding it together and working on it.
Serge has changed quite a bit, actually. You don’t plan that, but it just tends to happen – you find rhythms and you get to know your character better. Sometimes just unconsciously, you become more in tune with who you’re playing in a way that you don’t really even know that you’re doing it, but it just becomes easier.”
The play is famously extremely funny – not just in the script but because of the intricately-timed and perfectly executed comedic moments, the distinct and flawed characters, and the intensely chemistry driven physical comedy. He says of ART that, “this play was always going to be funny because it’s funny on the page. We knew from the very first preview in Sydney that it was the same for the audience. But it’s gotten funnier too, because there are bits that we didn’t realise were funny until one person said something differently or even accidentally put the emphasis on a different word one night.”
Having seen this work in Sydney at the beginning of the tour, the highlight for me was definitely the chemistry between the characters, particularly in the rich and vivid moments of silence that were bursting with all the things that weren’t being said. Apart from the obvious (the brilliant performances), the staging adds to the chemistry throughout because of its sparsity. Set in Serge’s living room, Charles Davis‘ minimalist design presents a vast open space that leaves the actors very exposed – just like the blank canvas the work revolves around. The precision of their interplay is divine as the jokes and inquiry reopen old wounds as the text becomes increasingly tumultuous.
The Sydney and Brisbane receptions have been overwhelmingly positive with Herriman saying that none of the three actors have experienced the regularity or the volume of laughter like this before in any show they’ve done.
“There’s something about this play that brings a lot of joy – and even just speaking to people afterwards, they have beaming smiles across their faces like they’ve just seen the theatrical version of a rock concert or something”
One of the things Herriman is going to miss most when the ART tour finishes, is “the immediacy of the live audience”. He says there’s a thrill involved, “once the curtain is up, it’s on and it doesn’t end till ninety minutes later and there’s no getting off. And that’s incredibly exciting.”
Theatre can be intense, challenging and powerfully moving, and in today’s society, many works have a lot to say about the current socio-political climate. While ART has plenty to say about timeless themes like loyalty, male friendships and ego, it’s a work that feels like a breath of fresh air – providing 90 minutes of laughs and escapism delivered by three exceptional actors at the top of their game.
Art is playing in Melbourne until May 17th and in Adelaide from 20-24th May.
