Jake Mace
Justin Maxwell is the playwright of upcoming EdFringe show Exhausted Paint: The Death of Van Gogh and also an Associate Professor in the Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans. Justin’s show takes a new, ‘painterly’, approach to understanding the inner world and torment of a man who felt and expressed the extremes of human experience, Vincent Van Gogh. We caught up with Justin for a pixelated pint to find out more about what inspired the piece.
You can catch Exhausted Paint: The Death of Van Gogh from August 1st to 23rd (not the 6th, 10th, 13th or 17th) at Haldane Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall from 14:55 (55mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
Jake: Hi Justin! Your upcoming show takes a ‘painterly’ approach to understanding the inner world and torment of Van Gogh – can you tell us what you mean by that, and why you decided to take this vision to the stage.
Justin: With a “painterly” approach to old Vinnie, I was trying to do two things at once. On an abstract level, I wanted to bring the powerful sense of control and craft that moves across his letters. We can never really know who the man was, but the play gave me space to explore some of his traits. Traits I share. Traits I think most artists share—that powerful paradox of being able to control our craft but not control the fate of the art we make. While I have mountains of publications and productions, my best play sits in a desk drawer. I suspect most artists can relate.
On a more concrete level, reading about how Van Gogh, especially late in his career, built daubs of paint on his palette and then applied each glob with a pallet knife really inspired me. I studied his descriptions of this approach, and then applied them to how I wrote his dialogue. On the page Van Gogh speaks with line break, like in a poem, and each line was swirled together as a baud of meaning, tone, and diction.
Jake: Tell us about what the audience can expect coming into the show, and what they might not expect about the show.
Justin: Frankly, what they can expect is the unexpected! A core theme of the show is about the painful dynamic of what we as artists can and can’t control, so the structure of the play is something that nobody can control. The show starts and ends with predetermined scenes. However, at the end of each scene, the actor playing Van Gogh, spins a strange and ominous wheel, and where the wheel stops determines what scene happens next. So, nobody knows what the show will look like from one night to the next, just like van Gogh didn’t know what would happen next.
There are tens of millions of possible ways the show could happen. When I did the play previously, a few audience members would ask to come up and inspect the wheel after the show, base they wanted to see how we rigged it to stop in the right sequence. They were amazed that there is no sequence. Lots of folks who see the show once, come back and see it again.
Jake: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
Justin: At the end f the day, this paly is a tonal sense of Vân Gogh based on his letters, not a biography. The show makes that pretty clear, but audiences won’t get a history lesson. Instead, I think the takeaway is that in these frightening and difficult times, we still make art. We make it with what we have. We make it to keep our own hearts full as some very dark cultural forces here in the United States try and deplete us. So, it’s a cautionary play about holding on too tight, and it’s a cathartic play about making art in the world right now.
Jake: With Edinburgh Fringe 2025 just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Justin: While I hope to see all 3,000+ shows, that might be a bit ambitious. I think the thing I’m most excited for is the community. The sense of being an artist among artists is something I’m hoping to just indulge in. My job, teaching playwriting in the MFA program at the University of New Orleans, will have me doing a lot more administrative work this year, and I’m hoping to just float in a sea of art and culture, before cuddling up to a monitor full of spread sheets.
Fortunately, Flying Solo! Presents, the production company staging the show, is also hosting a follies event on the days we’re off that spotlights a plethora of American artists in Edinburgh. So not only do we share the same values, but Penny Cole is bringing a lot of good work right to me. Still, a city full of theatre feels like a dizzyingly good time. If you see me on the street, come up, say hello, and tell me about the cool thing that’s pulled you to the Fringe. I want to know!
Jake: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
Justin: Well, given what Vinnie did to his ear after some absinthe, it’s definitely not that. He drank turpentine once, but that’s not a beverage I’m going to endorse either. I think it needs to be something slightly sweet, slightly bitter, and a little comforting. Maybe a hot apple cider, with a shot of grain alcohol in it.
A reminder, you can catch Exhausted Paint: The Death of Van Gogh from August 1st to 23rd (not the 6th, 10th, 13th or 17th) at Haldane Theatre at theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall from 14:55 (55mins). Tickets are available through the EdFringe Online Box Office.
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