VINCENT - Reviews
NEW YORK TIMES
January 16, 2003,
Thursday
The severed ear. The suicidal gunshot. The sunflowers.
All are present in ''Vincent,'' an operatic new musical retracing the tortured life of Vincent van Gogh, playing through Feb. 1 at the Wings Theater, 154 Christopher Street, in Greenwich Village.
With a book, music and lyrics by Robert Mitchell (the songs are based on van Gogh's letters to his brother, Theo, and to friends), ''Vincent'' proves ultimately touching though not consistently satisfying. Its effectiveness owes much to the persevering performance of Paul Woodson in the demanding title role of the lonely, loveless artist, and to the sympathetic portrayal by Mark Campbell of the often vexed but caring Theo.
As biography, ''Vincent,'' directed by Judith Fredricks, wavers between a dutiful recounting of the artist's travails and, more successfully, dramatic depictions of his emotions and the evolution of his artistic tenets.
The show's lyrics are blunt and understandably unpoetic, its music suitably spiky, dark and dissonant. No one is likely to leave humming a tune. The single brief dance number, set in a Parisian cafe where the leading artists of the day -- among them Cézanne, Signac, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec -- air their theories, falls flat, though the 19-member cast displays commendable talents.
The scenes in the cafe, leading to van Gogh's fierce espousal of art that is not a race to see who is first in innovation but to portray what is real, are powerful, as is an earlier scene in the van Gogh home. There, in the presence of his disapproving parents, the grubby, penniless van Gogh, who has lived with a prostitute and her illegitimate child and who favors the contemporary literature of Hugo and Zola, likens himself to a ''gruff, scruffy dog,'' but one with a soul and a human heart.
In the end this soul and this heart infuse ''Vincent,'' like
the artist himself, with a stubborn nobility. LAWRENCE VAN GELDER
Published: 01 - 16 - 2003, Late Edition - Final, Section E , Column 3
, Page 2
Van Gogh's anguished life is set to music
By FREDERICK M. WINSHIP
From the Life & Mind Desk
Published 1/28/2003 12:48 PM
NEW YORK, Jan. 28 (UPI) -- The life and art of Vincent Van Gogh, the 19th-century Dutch artist, have inspired numerous exhibitions, a small library of books, several films and now an impressive musical by Robert Mitchell, a first-rate theatrical composer-lyricist who should be better known than he is.
The show titled "Vincent" at the Wings Theater in Greenwich Village is the fourth musical written and composed by Mitchell, best known for "Rappacini's Daughter" and "Bags," both produced Off-Broadway. He also has composed extensively for film and written a Latin-jazz arrangement of the music from "Carmen" for a ballet commissioned and performed by the Chicago Ballet Company. Mitchell's music for "Vincent" is on the dark side as befits a musical that is not a musical comedy. It is sometimes dissonant and often rhythmically quirky but always supportive of the human voice and the emotions expressed by the singers. It would be nice to hear this interesting score fully orchestrated, but for this modest production instrumentation is limited to keyboard and synthesizer
This premiere production is fortunate to have in the title role Paul Woodson, a compactly built blond tenor with a fair resemblance to the Van Gogh we know from self-portraits. He has an agile, quicksilver voice that serves him well in scenes in which Vincent goes off the deep end, especially when acting out his self-described role in life as a "gruff, scruffy dog" to the horror of his conventional family.
Vincent's frustrations, first as a Dutch Reformed evangelist working thanklessly to alleviate the sordid lives of miners in Belgian coal fields and later as a struggling artist supported by his brother, Theo, are underscored in scene after scene. He loves a cousin who doesn't love him, lives with an ungrateful prostitute and mistakenly thinks he has found a soul mate in painter Paul Gauguin. The first act dealing with Vincent's failure as art salesman in The Hague and London and his dismissal as an evangelist by disapproving church elders is somewhat slow going, but the second act picks up momentum with Vincent's arrival in Paris where his art-dealer brother introduces him to the Impressionist circle of artists who patronize the Tambourin Cafe.
The convivial scene in which Vincent is accepted as an artist manquĂ by the likes of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Georges Seurat, Paul CĂzanne, Paul Signac, Henri Rousseau, and Gauguin is the musical's high point, boasting its only choreographic sequence danced to tango rhythms and involving most of the 19-member cast. It is fun to hear this group tossing about artistic theories in snatches of song that have overtones of "La Boheme."
Mitchell has also given Vincent moments alone on the stage when he tries hard to read events that are sweeping him along to tragedy in an optimistic light. One of these is his sentimental soliloquy to the little chair he has placed in the room set aside for Gauguin's happily anticipated but ill-fated visit with him in Arles. How that visit ended with Vincent severing his own ear is one of the musical's most moving scenes.
Penniless, in and out of mental asylums, and a pawn in the hands of an eccentric medic, Dr. Gachet, Vincent shoots himself in the chest and dies two days later in Theo's arms. His decadelong devotion to painting has garnered him only one sale and a single enthusiastic article by an art critic. Only two years later his work was given a retrospective exhibition that was the first step toward worldwide acclaim.
Outstanding performances are being given by John Wilmes, who’s handsomely conceived Gauguin is fleshed out more fully than any of Vincent's fellow artists, Mark Campbell as the ever-supportive Theo, and James Murphy as a bizarrely amusing Dr. Gachet. Sarah Marvel Bleasdale is a remarkably convincing Sien Hoornik, the prostitute who has mixed feelings about Vincent despite his kindness to her and her baby.
Judith Fredricks has done wonders in marshaling the movements of a large cast on a small stage, and Bill Wood's successful suggestion of changing settings without using solid scenery is to be commended. Laura Frecon's costumes designs reflect the era and in some instances are inspired by Vincent's paintings. Bobby Araujo's choreography for the Tambourin scene is limited but effective.
Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International
Off-Off Broadway January 16, 2003 -Vincent -Reviewed By Michael Lazan
Theater:Wings Theatre Company
With some compelling, almost operatic music and the inherent intrigue of the life of Vincent Van Gogh, Robert Mitchell's informative musical keeps an audience engaged for most of its two or so hours. The musical means to profile Van Gogh's adult life, which began, interestingly enough, with the young artist not practicing art, but selling it. Then, even more oddly, Van Gogh went into the vocation of preaching, following his rather distant and even tyrannical father. After these two choices end in failure, it is then that Vincent begins to take up art more seriously, coinciding with a liaison with a prostitute.
The second act mostly consists of Van Gogh's attempts to become an artist, as he hangs around with the likes of Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat, and, especially, Gauguin. This is not as well dramatized as the earlier material, perhaps because Mitchell, who wrote the book, lyrics, and music, may have tried to incorporate too many aspects of Van Gogh's life for a two-hour musical. Certainly, there are a lot of scenes in this musical, which flickers from moment to moment so fast it's not really possible to hone in on a particular time and place with exacting detail. Nevertheless, the piece lingers in your head long after it is over, especially the hangdog look of Paul Woodson, simply spot on as Vincent. Also helping matters is that the songs, many of which are short and haunting, are almost all well sung. Director Judith Fredricks' cast, in fact, is quite impressive throughout, weaving their way through the scenes and songs with absolute precision and clarity. Also notable in the cast are Mark Campbell's sober and determined Theo, Sarah Marvel Bleasdale's elegiac Sien (and other roles), Charles Karel's wicked father (other roles also), and John Wilmes' able Gauguin (again, other roles also). Cindy Shumsey's clever lighting, Bobby Araujo's seamless choreography, and Laura Frecon's handsome costumes add even more to the proceedings.