I’ve always thought my play about Vincent and I would be a perfect summer show: it’s uplifting, it will be beautiful (and about beauty), and lastly, I’d love to be able to step outside with my audience during the show, letting the fresh air into our lungs and gazing at the stars in wonder — imagining and, indeed, conceiving what it was that Vincent saw in them. I want to look at real stars and speak his words, if possible. And since I’m putting it up in Chicago, that means it’s got to be the summer.

So then, this past July when I started this website, I had already started my quotes project and so I became aware of the anniversary of Vincent’s death (July 29th)  and it happened to be the day of my first entry. I think it was around then that I realized I wanted my show to also open on July 29th. Then a series of ideas flooded my brain: my birthday is August 31st, so if the show closed that day it’d have a nice five weekend run, which is plenty of time for the word to spread and to have reviewers come and actually review it. (For those of you not in the theater business, most shows by young theater makers only run for about a week, which in a way, is like shooting yourself in the foot. A great start, but you can’t really get enough attention. And besides, since I’ve been working on this for over two years and moved to Chicago to make it happen, and have in every other way put all my eggs in this one very yellow basket, why not go all the way?)

So then it became TRUTH: Vincent’s Yellow will be running in Chicago July 29th – August 31st 2010! (yes, I know the closing is a Tuesday, it’ll be a special evening followed by a birthday party for me)

2010 is also nice because then it’s been 120 years since Vincent’s death. It’s not quite as cool the centennial of his death, 1990 (note the millions of projects and retrospectives that were dated for that year… okay not millions but you get the idea), but it’s pretty awesome from where I’m sitting. The show starts with his end, and ends with my beginning. Sounds perfect to me. (Did I mention I will be turning 25 years old?)

So this past week I’ve been working a lot on the play, and I plan on typing up all the last revisions to finish off my first full draft today (super exciting! and I met my self-imposed deadline!). Which means, this evening, I will have ONE document that is my play. This is very amazing, because the building blocks are scenes I have been writing entirely separate from one another over the past two years.

So now where has the plan taken me? I have arrived at the fact that I have an enormous show to put up and a lot of work to do in the next six months. If the show opens at the end of July, I want to start rehearsing at the end of May, which means I need to do auditions in April, which means the script MUST be done by then. But that part is easier. What’s more complicated is that, as a friend called to my attention this morning,  I need to get a creative team together asap and I need to start hunting for my perfect performance space.

I am very excited, slightly overwhelmed, and most importantly, I am inviting you, yes you, where ever you are right now, to my show. It wouldn’t be the same without you.

Now, I don’t normally think one theatrical experience is worth flying to a city to see, whether it’s my work, or anyone else’s, but I have been fighting and will continue to fight to make this show the absolute pinnacle of everything I believe in, to make it a theatrical experience that cannot be had, seen, tasted or felt anywhere else, to make it the most perfectly tuned expression of everything Vincent has taught me, to make it a gift that you will take home with you in your heart, in your gut, and in your mind. I am aiming to give you everything, personally, from my hands to yours.

Plus, Chicago is awfully beautiful in the summer! :)

Image courtesy of chicagophotos.blogspot.com

So I’ve planted the idea in your head: come to Chicago in August for Beauty. Roll it around in your mouth, fiddle with it between your fingertips. I’ll be returning to this in later entries.

In the meantime, it’s time for me to get back to work! But I will leave you with a little Vincent before I go.

Vincent often imagined himself as a worker similar to a farmer, a sower or a reaper, as yet another common man who slaved outdoors all day. The farmer’s work was taxing, but very important. So Vincent worked with the same unwavering strength and determination.

His admiration also drove him to paint them.

Image courtesy of vangoghletters.org

First and foremost, when I’ll be able to pay more for models, and female models too, I’ll make further progress; I feel it and I know it. And I’ll probably also succeed in being able to do portraits. But that depends on working hard; not a day without a line, as Gavarni used to say. (January 1881 to Theo)

Not a day without a line, my friends. Until next week.

A month after Vincent recovered from the infamous ear incident in Arles at the end of 1888, the town got together and signed a petition to kick him out of Arles and send him to an asylum. Upon actually reading the petition, we find their accusations for him being mentally unstable are based upon 1) his drinking irresponsibly and 2) touching women in public inappropriately without their permission. There is little doubt of exaggeration  here nor any doubt that the town had whipped itself up into a frenzy.

Of the cutting of the ear itself, there is still to this day no evidence that can prove how such a thing occurred. I personally find it just as likely that Gauguin had severed part of the ear as that Vincent had (note that it is not the whole ear!), especially given that they had a fight, and Gauguin left town abruptly that night. Gauguin also changed his story several times after the fact, adding that Vincent threatened him with a razor in an account written ten years later. But most importantly, no one knows what happened. Everything is speculation.

Saint Paul de Mausole

Now we can move on to my visit to this place. Although nearly all paintings executed during the year Vincent stayed at the asylum (there were over 150!) list their location as Saint Rémy, that is actually the name of the nearby town. Saint Paul de Mausole is the name of the asylum. I am not quite sure what I expected, but the area was exquisitely beautiful. Indescribable, actually.

Immediately, I recognized the groves of olive trees that greeted me. You depicted these trees dozens of times over the course of 1889 in drawings and paintings, Vincent.

Olive Trees, 1889

I remember a friend of mine telling me that this version (at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) was an example of one of your “ugly” paintings. I smiled. He pointed out the purple in the ground as evidence. I told him that sometimes, shadows are purple. I think you may have smiled too. The olive trees were just as minutely studied by you as the cypresses…

Cypresses, 1889

Upon approaching Saint Paul, it became apparent that once again there were signs marking the spots where Vincent had ventured to paint.  He was allowed, with accompaniment, to walk up to an hour beyond the walls of the asylum. I am sure he never imagined the main road here being named Avenue Vincent van Gogh.

As one of the signs put it:

The fact that van Gogh was allowed to leave Saint Paul to go and paint is a sign of the consideration felt for him by the medical staff and the nuns of Saint Paul de Mausole, particularly his great friend sister Epiphane, at a time when psychiatry was more concerned with restraint than treatment.

My heart warmed to know you had a friend here… And so I followed your footsteps, past the asylum walls.

Often recognizing the shapes of the landscape…

Trees in the Garden of Saint Paul Hospital , 1889

And sensing your spirit…

Near…

And full as ever.

]]> http://www.vincentsyellow.com/2009/12/14/saint-remy/feed/ 1 http://www.vincentsyellow.com/2009/12/11/arles-smells-like/ http://www.vincentsyellow.com/2009/12/11/arles-smells-like/#comments Fri, 11 Dec 2009 18:40:35 +0000 Teresa http://www.vincentsyellow.com/?p=367 Arles. From my hotel window.

Les Alyscamps.

Butterfly in L’Espace Van Gogh sucks up yellow. (I had never really had the privilege to watch a butterfly drink!)

The Langlois Bridge – take a closer look. (I’m sure I’m pronouncing it wrong)