Brush Strokes on Canvas
By KAREN SHADE World Scene Writer
04/29/2007
Van Gogh (Marc Scofield, left), Patrick (Jason Watts) and Gauguin (Dale Sams) argue about paintings in Heller Theatre’s production of “Inventing Van Gogh.”
SHERRY BROWN / Tulsa World
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'Inventing Van Gogh' explores the roots of creativity
Vincent van Gogh is thought to have painted 40 portraits of himself through his career. Heller Theatre is attempting its own likeness of the myth-shrouded artist with a play asking the tough questions about art.
Steven Dietz's "Inventing Van Gogh" seeks out the source of vibrancy that keeps the doors to places like Heller open.
"The best pieces in the script are the arguments about what is creativity -- what is passion, the nature of creativity?" said director Julie Tattershall.
"Inventing Van Gogh," which opens Thursday night, skips across reason and logic in search of answers, she said.
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The play opens on a jaded, present-day painter named Patrick, interrupted in his workroom by an art authenticator dubbed by artists as the "Destroyer of Masterpieces." This destroyer is also a blackmailer, threatening to ruin the reputation of Patrick's late mentor and possibly incriminate Patrick unless he agrees to forge a lost van Gogh self-portrait.
As Patrick contemplates whether to do the forg ery, van Gogh appears. To the master, Patrick is just one of the hallucinations that has arisen to torture this mad, depressed, uneducated loner-genius who never sold a painting in his lifetime.
"This is all very familiar," wrote Dietz in notes printed with the script of the reputation often given to Van Gogh. "The only problem is that none of it is true."
The play takes most of van Gogh's dialogue from his letters to his brother, Theo van Gogh.
Going back and forth through time, the play explores the notions of passion, vibrancy and creativity through parallel stories of families and relationships. It also reveals a unique picture of van Gogh, Tattershall said.
"You don't always get the answers in the end," she said. "In some ways you get more questions . . . What you do get to see is . . . van Gogh. You get to see who this person was, and you also get to see Gauguin (van Gogh's mentor)."
"I wish I could write like this, I think this is a masterpiece, and it's very theatrical," Tattershall said. "You have the human dramas about a father and daughter not connecting, about a family falling apart, about two artists not accepted in society."
And in presenting the play, she's chosen to follow van Gogh's maxim: "Exaggerate the essential, leave the obvious vague."
The cast for "Inventing Van Gogh" includes Marc Scofield, Jason Watts, Dale Sams, Bre Bolding and Michael Massey.
Karen Shade 581-8334
karen.shade@tulsaworld.com
Theater
“Inventing Van Gigh”
When:
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and May 10-12; 2 p.m. May 6
Where:
Heller Theatre, 5328 S. Wheeling Ave.
Admission:
tickets are $8 for adults and $6 for students and seniors For more information, call 746-5065 or go online to www.hellertheatre.com.
This site sponsored by Heller Theatre Council.
To contact the webmaster e-mail alb74066@aol.com or Heller Theatre at Parktheater@ci.tulsa.ok.us
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