‘Vincent’: Insight Into Van Gogh Via His Brother

Timed to coincide with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s “Van Gogh’s Van Goghs: Masterpieces From the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam” exhibition, director Cynthia Parks’ handsome revival of “Vincent” at the Court Theatre affords haunting insights into the man behind those canvases of textured swirls and intensely vibrant colors.

The play, by Leonard Nimoy, explores the artist’s tortured life through the dramatized correspondence between Vincent and his art dealer brother, Theo--both effectively portrayed by Sam Lovett. The work opens with troubled Theo’s reflections a week after Vincent’s death, as he tried to unburden his soul of all the things he was never able to say to his brother. During these reminiscences, would-be priest-turned-painter Vincent springs to life to recite his anguished, life-devouring letters. The sequence involving Van Gogh’s semi-institutionalized exile in Arles is particularly harrowing, chronicling the paths of Van Gogh’s deteriorating mental condition and his accelerating artistic output.

In rapid, cleanly modulated transitions employing voice and posture shifts, Lovett alternates between two finely differentiated characters: the soft-spoken, pragmatic Theo and the husky, dysfunctional Vincent. Just as important, Lovett shows us how each is tragically incomplete. Vincent yearns for Theo’s facility with worldly affairs, while Theo envies the artistic expression that eludes his own feeble attempts at painting.

In a stylish flourish toward the end of the piece, a curtain parts to reveal 14 famous Van Gogh paintings, crystallizing the connection between the man and his art. These reproductions may lack the impact of the real McCoys at the LACMA show, but tickets are a lot easier to come by.

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* “Vincent,” Court Theatre, 722 N. La Cienega Blvd., West Hollywood. Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Feb. 21. $25. (323) 660-8587. Running time: 1 hour, 20 minutes.