BIRMINGHAM.- Birmingham Repertory Theatre Company will be presenting the play “The Old Masters”, by Simon Gray. The play will be shown beginning Friday, June 04, 2004 and continue through Saturday, June 19, 2004. Simon Gray´s new play lays open the fascinating world of the market in fine art, exploring issues of true value, of provenance, and of forgery and fraud artistic and personal, via the real life relationship between Duveen and Berenson.
The Old Masters is the ninth play in Simon Gray and Harold Pinter´s long-standing writer/director relationship. Previous collaborations include Butley, The Late Middle-Classes, Quartermaine´s Terms and Life Support.Directing the play will be Harold Pinter, Eileen Diss will be the set designer, and costume designer will by Dany Everett. Lighting will be taken care of my Mick Hughes.
The play takes place in 1937, on a a perfect summer´s day. In the magnificent gardens of his opulent Villa overlooking Florence, Bernard Berenson, the renowned Art critic, connoisseur, writer, and collector, is taking his ease discussing art and world affairs with his wife, Mary, and with Nicky, his mistress. Meanwhile, unknown to Berenson, in a hotel in Florence, multimillionaire Joseph Duveen, the world´s most pre-eminent art dealer, is preparing to visit him late that night. He has with him a priceless Renaissance painting for Berenson to examine - though he knows that this may shatter their 30 year-old - and highly secret - business arrangement.
Midnight in a library in Mussolini´s Italy. Two Jewish intellectuals with the storm gathering around them. Men who virtually invented the international art market - And an enigmatic masterpiece at the heart of the matter: how much does the true value of a work of art depend on its attribution? What happens when that attribution is open to doubt? "As for Simon Gray ... I admire him tremendously. I think he´s a writer of incredible vividness and vigour and wit. I always have a whale of a time directing his plays." Presented by arrangement with Greg Ripley-Duggan and Duveen Productions Ltd.