Inventing Van Gogh by Steven Dietz Jan. 9–Apr. 16, 2009 an asolo rep production in the mertz theatre A thrilling tale of love, deception, and obsession. When Patrick Stone is approached by an art authenticator and asked to forge a van Gogh painting – a mysterious self-portrait that may never have existed – it sets in motion a chain of events that reveals the secrets of both Patrick and van Gogh’s haunted lives. Part mystery, part quest, Inventing Van Gogh explores the very essence of creation.     Sarasota Magazine, 01/12/09 Pelican Press, 02/04/09 Herald-Tribune, 01/04/09
SETTING The action takes place by turns in Patrick’s studio in America and various locations near Auvers, France. The set itself evokes the essence of multiple places and times without specifying any one location explicitly. Time is fluid in this play, with action taking place in America in the present as well as three years earlier, and France in the late 1800s. Inventing Van Gogh will be performed with one intermission. DIRECTORS NOTES We all love a good tabloid headline, and Vincent van Gogh’s life was full of them.  Ask most people about van Gogh and they will tell you he was that freakish artist who cut off his ear to suffer for his art and died dirt-poor, broken, and barking mad. He generously fulfills the stereotype of the artist as recluse and lunatic. But when you actually research the facts, you discover that none of this is true. In his preface to this play, playwright Steven Dietz observes, “In a culture which needs to believe that insight and brilliance are a rarified form of madness, we all like our heroes tragic, our endings messy. We want to believe that suffering is the recompense for great art. We invent a van Gogh.” When the curtain rises, three lives have been shattered by the towering mythos surrounding the figure of the eccentric Dutch artist. Vincent’s volcanic persona haunts the modern world, seducing the curious down a torturous path to self-annihilation. But who was the real man and how much of this power is in the eye of the beholder? I myself felt the sensuous pull of Vincent, much like Dr. Miller does in the play. The more I studied him, the more my fascination snowballed into a manic desire to see life through Vincent’s eyes, to be his disciple, to passionately abandon myself to a life lived for nothing but authentic self-expression. My mind fixated on the image of van Gogh as a penitent worshipping at the altar of the God of Art, a man who cared nothing about food or dress or social mores, preferring instead a life lived without artifice, on a barren plane naked before the Universe. But like those seductive tabloid headlines, my feelings were at best a highly personalized and fantasy-driven image of Vincent. My imagination conjured a Vincent seen through my own desire to find a deeper connection to the world, and I think this is the very point that Dietz makes in his play: all of history is an act of creation on our part. We can never fully know the real van Gogh so we create him in our own image, just as troubled painter Patrick Stone does in his rooftop warehouse studio. Through Patrick, Dietz dares to incarnate a fascinating mystery: the inner workings of the creator’s mind as he creates. We witness a man forced to face his demons in order to re-emerge as a complete human being and artist. But like all witnesses, we will each report something unique from the viewing.  We will each come to different and divergent conclusions. All of our questions are not neatly and conveniently answered by the end; we still do not know exactly what happened in that field in Auvers years ago. We are invited instead to participate in our own act of creation by conjuring those events for ourselves. It is a thrilling invitation to find the artist within each of us.   The World Premiere of Inventing Van Gogh was produced by Arizona Theatre Company, Tucson/Phoenix, Arizona, David Ira Goldstein, Artistic Director, Jessica L. Andrews, Managing Director Inventing Van Gogh by Steven Dietz is presented by arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., in New York *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.	PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Michael Donald Edwards         DIRECTOR Brad Dalton                     SCENIC DESIGNER Lee Savage COSTUME DESIGNER Johann Stegmeir                 LIGHTING DESIGNER Chris Ostrom SOUND DESIGNER Matthew Parker                             CO–PRODUCERS Ed and Mary Lou Winnick Francis and Barb Misantone Cheryl Loeffler Lois Stulberg Alfred and Ann Goldstein Nancy Markle SPONSORS                DOWNLOAD THE SPOTLIGHT FOR MORE INSIGHT INTO THE SHOWS!