The Collaboration (play)

The Collaboration is a dramatic stage play written by New Zealand playwright Anthony McCarten. The play originated in the West End at The Young Vic in London. The original production starred Paul Bettany as Andy Warhol and Jeremy Pope as Jean-Michel Basquiat. The story, set in New York in 1984, centers around the collaboration between Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat and their new exhibition.^[1] The production transferred on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre in a co-production with the Manhattan Theatre Club and the Young Vic Theatre, starting on 29 November 2022, and ending in February 2023.

The show revolves around the painter and artist Andy Warhol, whose career is falling, and his relationship with the up-and-coming artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Together, they agree to collaborate on a new art exhibit.

The play was written by the British playwright Anthony McCarten and directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah. It is the second of what McCarten calls his "Worship Trilogy", works that explore the collective fascination with religion, art and money. The first in the installment was his 2019 film The Two Popes starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce as Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. The final installment of the "Worship Trilogy" is Wednesday at Warren's, Friday at Bill's, the upcoming McCarten-scripted adaptation about the meetings between Warren Buffett and Bill Gates that led to the establishment of The Giving Pledge, which encourages extraordinarily wealthy people to give their fortunes to philanthropic causes.^[2]

En 2022, se anunció que la obra sería adaptada a una película del mismo nombre , el debut como director de Kwei-Armah, con Bettany y Pope retomando sus papeles. ^{[ 2 ]}

La recepción crítica de la obra fue mixta, centrándose la mayoría de los elogios en la interpretación de Bettany y Pope como Warhol y Basquiat, respectivamente. Time Out comentó sobre la obra: «Es, como digo, un entretenimiento magnífico. Pero es innegable que resulta tremendamente artificial». ^{[ 4 ]} La crítica Arifa Akbar de The Guardian elogió las interpretaciones, escribiendo: «Bettany y Pope hacen mucho más que simplemente imitar a sus personajes famosos. Bettany capta los tics de Warhol —su torpeza y sus miradas atontadas— con un toque de cinismo impasible... Pope nos ofrece un espíritu libre, seductor e infantil en su Basquiat». ^{[ 5 ]} El crítico de The Evening Standard , Nick Curtis, elogió las interpretaciones, describiéndolas como «devastadoras», «triunfales» y «magníficas», y añadió: «McCarten... les proporciona un montón de grandes temas —arte, comercio, identidad, fe, muerte— sobre los que reflexionar». ^{[ 6 ]}