Pictures worth 1,000 words, and a handful of actors

Bruce Barton in a scene from “Exhibit This!”

By Stephanie Murg

In a 1961 manifesto, Claes Oldenburg famously advocated for art “that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum.” The pop artist gets his wish in “Exhibit This! The Museum Comedies,” a fast-moving series of 17 comedic scenes that brings to life over 40 works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Written by Luigi Jannuzzi and directed by Elizabeth Rothan, “Exhibit This!” riffs on everything from antiquities (a limestone Egyptian couple who complain about being upstaged by newly discovered mummified cats) to a Lucian Freud nude. In one scene, two Renoir portraits hung side by side strike up a conversation and ultimately, a budding romance.

The audience is introduced to many of the scenes through slides of the relevant artworks that are projected onto a large screen at stage right, and this conceit can be hilarious in itself. One scene begins with a projection of Watteau’s “Mezzetin” (1716-1720) a dazzling canvas that depicts a stock character from the commedia dell’arte sitting on a bench and dreamily strumming a guitar. The stage lights go up on actor Bruce Barton in a perfect imitation of the artwork, his head cocked at the precise angle and his mouth echoing Mezzetin’s wistful, goofy expression.

Meanwhile, Jannuzzi takes the cue of the Watteau painting’s background — a stage set — to break the fourth wall. Rousing the character of Mezzetin, whose name we soon learn is “Pat,” is a disembodied voice that booms over the speaker system, prompting Pat to question his identity: is he an actor in a painting? An actor playing a painting? An actor playing an actor in a painting? Call it a meta-meta-meta-reference.

In another scene, a curator convenes an emergency meeting of museum guards to alert them to be on the lookout for the lively band of women, children, and animals (did you ever notice the monkey?) who have managed to escape from Seurat’s oil sketch for “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” (1884–85). “They’ll appear very clear at a distance,” he advises. “But when you get up close, poof! They’ll disappear. This is pointillism.” Standing beside the curator is his nervous, silent assistant, played expertly and to great comic effect by Peter Stoll.

Stealing the show is Jasmin Singer as an informative yet romantically frustrated tour guide whose every stop summons a different, bitter memory of her ex-boyfriend and an ensuing existential crisis. Her well-delivered monologue is broken up into six parts that, sprinkled throughout the show, help both to unify and to propel it.

Brassy and emotional without being shrill, Singer is believable as a jilted girlfriend for whom Edward Hopper’s clear, bright canvas “The Lighthouse at Two Lights” (1929) prompts flashbacks of a doomed Maine vacation that ended with a solo Greyhound bus ride. Sidling up to Pierre Bonnard’s “The Terrace at Vernonnet” (1939), she smoothly imparts the work’s vital statistics and crisply summarizes the subject matter, “The lone woman waiting.” Her professionally detached voice then takes a sharp turn. “Like I was last Saturday night,” she snarls, before launching another rant of self-doubt.

Another standout performance is that of Jaron Farnham as wild-haired painter Salvator Rosa. The Italian Baroque artist emerges from a 1673 self-portrait sipping a Starbucks iced coffee through a straw and bemoaning his arrogant auto-depiction. The painting, projected for the audience on the screen, shows Rosa wearing a crown of thorns and inscribing a skull with the Greek words, “Behold, whither, when.” Taking a another swig from his drink, he concludes, “I’m a fine artist but a lousy thinker.” As Farnham effectively conveys, Rosa was also known as a brilliant, scathing satirist.

Despite its ambitious art historical scope and famous inspirations, “Exhibit This!” is more like a brisk walk through a small, regional museum than a stroll through the Met: the production is a whirl of ideas, styles, and performances of varying quality. Some of the scenes feel like academic exercises while others reveal glints of a strong composition that could underpin a masterpiece.

While many will appreciate the often belabored efforts of “Exhibit This!” to fulfill Oldenburg’s ideal of art that refuses to sit silent in museums, others may be more inclined to agree with Picasso, who once said, “As far as I am concerned, a painting speaks for itself.”