Future generations may well ponder the authorship of this art-historical play. Is it, as the programme avers, an authentic Simon Gray? Or does it reveal the hidden hand of Alan Bennett? After all it is set in Bernard Berenson's Villa I Tatti - source of a memorable Bennett sketch- and, like A Question of Attribution, deals with the provenance of a famous painting.
What marks it out as a genuine Simon Gray is that it revolves around a clash of male egos. The setting is the Tuscan home of the scholarly Berenson in 1937; and the big central scene involves a conflict between himself and the dealer, Joseph Duveen.
The latter, eager to clinch a deal, seeks Berenson's authentication of The Adoration of the Magi as the work of Giorgione rather than Titian. Knowing that his reputation as a connoisseur hinges on his honesty, Berenson steels himself to resist Duveen's duplicity, charm and bribery.
This scene, excellently played by Edward Fox as the high-handed expert and Peter Bowles as the wily dealer, justifies the play. Fox, with his artfully elongated vowels, is all pained integrity: Bowles, describing imaginary circles in the air with fluttering hands, is like a magical Mephistopheles.
But the scene also raises fascinating moral questions about the validity and importance of artistic attribution; and it concludes that, in a world poised on the edge of barbarism, truth is indivisible.
But not even the skill of Harold Pinter's production nor the quality of the acting can disguise the fact that much of the rest of the play feels like padding. Berenson's peculiar domestic arrangements, whereby he co-habited with his ailing wife and adoring female amanuensis, are of marginal relevance to the main theme.
And one scene, where Duveen's assistant negotiates with Berenson's mistress, is simply prolix scene-setting. Gray's real concern is with the primacy of truth at a crucial moment for European civilisation; but he spends too much time building a decorative frame around the big picture.
The acting, however, is pure delight. Fox is like some hypnotically eccentric survivor in a crumbling world. Bowles wittily personifies serpentine guile.
And, although they have too little to do, Barbara Jefford endows Berenson's wife with an extraordinary tolerant ferocity and Sally Dexter makes his mistress patiently seductive. Eileen Diss's set also conjures up an idllyic world which Pinter's production implies will soon disintegrate.
But the play belongs to its two male leads and when they are on stage you forgive Gray's elegant meanderings.
· Until August 28. Box office: 0870 060 6637.
