Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Dealing and drifting

Six Degrees of Separation<br /> Old Vic, until 3 April The Little Dog Laughed <br /> Garrick, booking to 10 April

issue 30 January 2010

Six Degrees of Separation
Old Vic, until 3 April

The Little Dog Laughed
Garrick, booking to 10 April

Even those who’ve never entered a theatre know the title. John Guare’s 1990 play, Six Degrees of Separation, tells of a penniless black hustler, Paul, who inveigles his way into New York’s upper-class society by claiming to be the son of Sidney Poitier. The couple he bamboozles are art dealers. Wily, avaricious and insecure, they work without a gallery and instead operate in the shadows of parties and restaurants, like illicit bookies, speculating in works which they own briefly and then ‘flip’ to the next greedy broker or syndicate. Dealing invisibly makes them attractive to clients who are anxious to conceal their wealth from respectable muggers like the revenue or the ex-wife.

Guare’s many-layered script is full of astute cultural observations.

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