Review - The Pitmen Painters: Don't Quit Your Day Job

As Lee Hall's The Pitmen Painters, inspired by the true story of a collection of miners who art history books now refer to as The Ashington Group, commences, the title characters are quite figuratively blank canvases. Raised to spend nine hours a day working the northern English coal mines from the time they're still boys, the small gathering of fellows who decided they wanted to learn a bit about culture through weekly visits from a university art professor have never set foot in a gallery and know nothing of the great works most of their countrymen would recognize as part of common knowledge. Their understanding is that there is some "secret" behind art that only the elite know about, giving them the ability to determine what's good and what isn't.

Their instructor, Robert Lyon (Ian Kelly) soon sees that a traditional lecture and slide show will never do for them, so instead he starts assigning the gentlemen to pick up brushes and start painting, with the group discussing each member's work. Not only do they start sensing the notion that art's value is subjective, emotional and personal, but, with the help of a wealthy patron (Philippa Wilson), they also enjoy a collective celebrity in Britain's art scene while still going about their duties in the mines.

Even if the story of a chance to elevate one's self from a dangerous, working-class life through art sounds a bit too much like Billy Elliot, Hall's other current Broadway offering, The Pitmen Painters is a far superior piece with a strong emotional pull; its heart pumping primarily from the sensitive Oliver Kilbourn (the excellent Christopher Connel), the most talented of the bunch, who is timid about this new world that is not only accepting him but is offering an opportunity to become a benefactor's fully-supported resident painter. Though there is much of the expected fish-out-of-water humor, especially when the boys first encounter modern art, Hall also develops a good deal of empathy as their skills, as well as competitiveness, develop. Since this is a British play, issues of class and labor threaten to bog down the darker second act with its heavy-handed presentation; the time might be better spent showing the early artistic progress of the group (they seem too good too soon) and exploring more of their day-to-day lives in the mines.

But director Max Roberts' lean and crisp production, which originated in Newcastle in 2007 and comes to Broadway, with its very good original company, by way of London's National, reasonably gets through the didactic patches, making The Pitmen Painters, for the most part, a feel-good charmer that realistically celebrates unexpected human creativity.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Christopher Connel, Brian Lonsdale, Deka Walmsley, Michael Hodgson and David Whitaker; Bottom: Christopher Connel, Michael Hodgson, Deka Walmsley and David Whitaker.

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