Playwright: Dennis McIntyre
At: The Artistic Home, 3914 N. Clark
Phone: 866-811-4111; $23-$25
Runs through: March 22
Primal fear and reckless, defiant exuberance. That's the multi-hued mood of the breathless, opening moments of the Artistic Home's Modigliani, as the title artist bounds through a plate-glass window with a ferocity that radiates both feral desperation and wild exhilaration. Playing the early 20th-century painter of curvy, almond-eyed women, actor John Mossman only shatters imaginary glass—but the sheer kinetic force and audacious elation of his propulsive leap is so potent that suspension of disbelief easily hangs miles high, making the illusion of a thousand shards of glittering crystal an absolute reality.
So it goes in this feverishly physical hothouse of a production. Directed by Kathy Scambiaterra, Modigliani captures the lavishly free-wheeling wonder of both the artist and his era. It also captures the brutal, soul-sucking despair of trying to make a living through your art in a market where nobody wants you. Today, Modigliani's paintings can command upward of $30 million. During his brief lifetime, they sold for less than 100 francs.
By focusing his piece on a 72-hour period in 1916, playwright Dennis McIntyre provides a vivid snapshot of Parisian cafe society foaming with creativity and passion. We get a sense of the dazzling era when Modigliani, Picasso and a starry roster of artistic contemporaries lived cheek by jowl, forming a human Petri dish of free thinkers and painters, philosophers and feminists. Absinthe, ether and hash along with whiskey and wine fueled debate and creation—"We'll probably get sick," says Modigliani's friend Momo at the outset of a bender, "but we won't remember."
Yet alongside that gleeful debauchery and feverish artistic output, darker forces loomed. McIntyre writes without rose-colored glasses, and the ensemble ably depicts the cruelty and pain as well as the pleasures of life on the Left Bank. Anti-Semitism, World War I and constant, gnawing poverty shadowed Modigliani and his friends with ugly insistence—constant reminders that even the most outrageously good times never exist in a vacuum.
Unlike Picasso, Modigliani was forever teetering on a knife-edge of poverty and all the humiliation that state entails. Scambiaterra's direction mines both humor and tragedy from a life where sublime inspiration and groveling hunger existed side by side.
Mossman leads a strong ensemble with charisma to burn, but he's matched by Maria Stephens, who plays Modigliani's lover and the model for his most famous nudes. Modigliani's equal in terms of both passion and brains, Stephens' Beatrice is all graceful ferocity in the demanding role, a woman whose strong mind is balanced by white-hot sensuality.
Complementing the fervor of the cast is Chelsea Meyers wondrous scenic design. Huge sketches of Modigliani's women cover the walls of the space, literally enveloping the audience and the cast in evocative art.
