The Old Masters June 20, 2011

Simon Gray's intense drama of friendship, ethics, and doom involving two leading luminaries of the pre-World War II European art world, 'The Old Masters,' will be revived for an exclusive, two-evenings-only staged reading. The original cast from the play's February American premiere limited engagement at the Long Wharf Theater will be re-assembled for these readings. The drama deals with the world-renowned art historian Berenson and Lord Duveen, longtime associates who meet for a final, explosive encounter at I Tatti, Berenson's villa in Florence. Unfolding in the looming shadow of the rise of Italian Fascism, the two giants conduct an epic battle over the intrinsic value of art and money, connoisseurship and profits, as they debate a putative Renaissance masterpiece, 'The Adoration of the Shepherds,' whose attribution to Giorgione the scholar Berenson questions, insisting it is the work of his more famous student, Titian. This specialized dispute leads to the final, cathartic moments of a controversial professional relationship built on a combination of rivalry and mutual dependence.