Edinburgh Fringe Interview: Jack Ellis on Van Gogh & Me at Dovecot Studios

Van Gogh & Me began with something very ordinary that then became a life-long obsession.

The nine-week period at the centre of this piece follows a short, charged, almost impossible encounter between two artists, two temperaments and two visions of what painting, and by extension art, could be.

You mightalso like

Edinburgh Fringe Interview: Charlaina Thompson on DUST at Pleasance Courtyard

Edinburgh Fringe Interview: Michaela O’Connor on Sand at Summerhall

Gauguin arrives in Arles with a fairly defined artistic position, while Van Gogh is still searching for his own.

Van Gogh & Me traces how this imbalance leads to the relationship’s deterioration.

This period also contains one of the most persistent elements of the Van Gogh myth: the severed ear. Something we all know about, but not its context. The play implicitly asks: what precedes such an act?

The staging is deliberately simple: twenty-three paintings, two chairs and one actor.

I took the decision to present it as a solo performance because it, quite simply, all comes from me: my thoughts, feelings and opinions.

The performance does not “represent” Van Gogh; it is one way of encountering and trying to understand a very important moment in the history of modern art and, hopefully, invites the audience to join in.

You originally conceived the idea for this piece as well as performing it. How did your long-standing fascination with Van Gogh shape the story?

Basically, it started when I was a distracted schoolboy.

I wasn’t very academic, but my wonderful art teacher, Kyffin Williams, noticed I wasn’t paying attention. He introduced me to Van Gogh, who happened to be his favourite artist.

As I wasn’t much good at painting, he had me work on Vincent’s letters as an actor.

I had an almost instinctive reaction to reading the letters.

Shortly afterwards, I went to the then newly opened Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. There, standing in front of the real paintings, particularly those from the Studio of the South period, hit me very hard, right in the pit of my stomach, the bullseye of my soul.

I hadn’t even cried at my parents’ funeral, yet here I was, in floods of tears.

It was a very powerful introduction to him, and it never left me.

That lifelong fascination is at the heart of the play’s origins. But what happened through working on the piece is that my interest expanded. I became fascinated by the history and geography of the places he visited, and by the paintings themselves.

As I worked with them, they stopped being illustrations and became a fascination in themselves.

The show sees you play both Van Gogh and Gauguin. How do you approach embodying two such contrasting figures in a solo performance?

With difficulty.

As Judi Dench famously said in an interview, learning lines is quite boring. Once they’re in, though, you start going, “Oh, I see!”

For both characters, my way in is through voice and movement.

I found Vincent’s voice by studying Dutch accents and drawing on what we know about his physical appearance. He would have had very few teeth by then, so I worked on a slight whistle in his speech.

The real challenge with Vincent is not to do too much, but to keep him grounded.

Gauguin was a whole different kind of challenge. I actually started by giving him an Edinburgh accent because I find there’s something naturally knowledgeable and distinguished about it.

Later I changed his voice to a very subtle French accent, which I am still developing.

You’re reuniting with writer and director John Retallack after many years. What has that creative partnership brought to this project?

I already loved working with John when we were younger.

We travelled all over the world and had a lot of fun. At that time, you could say I was a rather lazy actor.

Eventually we both went our separate ways and only reconnected after we’d each developed in different directions.

When I first started talking about making this play, he gave me the confidence to pursue it.

The text he wrote at the very beginning became the foundation of what we have today.

And the wonderful thing is that John knows me incredibly well. Now that we’re both in our seventies, our friendship has become much deeper.

He understands my voice, both as an actor and as a person.

The production incorporates life-size painted recreations and an interactive element. How do these visual and participatory aspects enhance the audience experience?

The paintings are the storytellers.

In the end, they’re the only real physical evidence we have of those nine weeks in Arles, so they become characters in their own right.

Each painting establishes a place, a moment and a conversation.

Through the paintings, you witness the growing misunderstanding between the two artists, the tension building until it reaches something catastrophic.

Keeping the reproductions life-size is essential. If they were all reproduced at the same size, they would simply become illustrations.

Instead, I can physically interact with them, carry them, compare them and place them in relation to one another.

They become rooms that we enter together rather than pictures we simply look at.

By the end, the paintings have gained a life beyond themselves. They no longer simply depict the story, they have become part of it.

What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see Van Gogh & Me?

Sometimes, it only takes one image to change a life.

Before the legend, before the myths, before the ear, there is me, Jack, sixteen years old, in shock in front of a painting.

Van Gogh & Me begins there.

From there, we step into Arles and into nine intense weeks shared between Van Gogh and Gauguin: a fragile alliance, a creative fire and a friendship under pressure.

Sometimes, art isn’t just what we look at. It’s what we get pulled into.

Or, to put it more simply: if you’re interested in Van Gogh, complicated relationships and have 55 minutes to spare, this is for you.