Donna Oblongata Photo courtesy of The Hive Collaborative

Oblongata is a Philadelphia-based performance artist who intended The Van Gogh Shogh for the Fringe Festival, but declined to participate because she would not agree to the Fringe's requirement that each offering charge a standard admission fee. Yes, that's right, you can see The Van Gogh Shogh without paying a cent–in fact, the artist will not accept your money at the door. However, I do encourage you to bring some cash, as it will allow you to fully engage in some of the above-mentioned components of Oblongata's madcap creation.

While awaiting the start of the show in the shoebox-sized Hive Collaborative's theater, the audience is treated to a series of slides depicting paintings by Vincent Van Gogh, with the most sedate music I can imagine–Johann Pachelbel's "Canon in D"–soothing any nerves that might be on edge. Without warning, the blissful setting is disrupted by a hunched over, hirsute hub-grub delivery guy, apparently showing up at the wrong address.

This guy is remarkably familiar: orange curls breaking loose from a tight-fitting cap with a matching, rather untidy beard; a smock-styled coat buttoned only at the top; pants that fall just below the knee; and most of all, a pair of haunted eyes searching for something only he can see. His shoulders are hunched as if from carrying a weighty burden. Yep, definitely Vincent Van Gogh. When he speaks with a phlegmatic Dutch accent, we are even more certain. He is shocked to see his paintings being projected onto the wall, and even more surprised to discover that all of us have gathered just to see him. As far as he knows, no one beyond the small circle around his art-dealing (and primary means of support) brother Theo has ever heard of him.

There is absolutely no fourth wall in this show. Oblongata is the only performer–though a few of the audience members who volunteered in the course of the evening showed potential. The show is completely composed of her interactions with audience members, either as a collective or as individual volunteers on stage. Her Van Gogh is an awkward, somewhat bitter, self-absorbed man and clearly not used to working an audience–but Oblongata is fantastic at working the audience. For all his hard-to-take qualities, she makes Van Gogh a lovable, engaging, and extremely funny accidental host.

Van Gogh gives us a narrated slideshow of his work (so many self-portraits!) peppered with anecdotes about their creation and carries on about Theo and other aspects of the artist's difficult existence. To prove that art isn't easy, he recruits six among us to sit behind easels, paintbrush in hand, and follow him step by step in creating their own version of a Van Gogh masterpiece. He prompts them with rhetorical questions like "What is blue?" and cajoles them further with "What kind of sound does 'blue' make," and "How does blue dance?" It is goofy fun, but also pushes the audience to think about these ethereal qualities we take for granted.

There are more hijinks, and I won't report them all, except to tell you that the opportunities to spend some of your money, while definitely not required of anyone in the audience, adds to the fun, so be prepared. There are other ways to participate as well, such as offering your opinion during an art criticism session. Oblongata displays a gift for improvised responses to the audience, making her retorts funny without ever being mean.

The show is definitely low tech, with a desktop-sized bubble machine and hand-held disco ball, for example, used to create an eighties-vibe club ambience for one segment. It is impossible for me to gauge how much director Francesca Montanile Lyons contributed toward tailoring and tightening–or, perhaps, loosening–Oblongata's performance, since so much of the show, including much of the design and staging effects, is the product of Oblongata's fertile mind. Whatever guidance Lyons gave to Oblongata, it was the right thing. Rita Burkholder is credited with providing "production design assistance," and I am not sure what aspects of the show Burkholder contributed, but whatever they were, it's all good.

It is a shame that The Van Gogh Shogh only stayed in the Twin Cities for a four-day stint, but it is worth keeping an eye out should Oblongata bring this madcap entertainment to your neck of the woods. Or perhaps she will bring one of the other shows she has in her repertoire. If they are brimming with as much inspired lunacy as The Van Gogh Shogh, I certainly will want to catch them.

The Van Gogh Shogh ran August 1, 2024 through August 4, 2024 at The Hive Collaborative (formerly Dreamland Arts Theatre), Hamline Ave. N., St. Paul MN. For information about The Hive Collaborative, please visit thehivecollaborativemn.com. For information about Oblongata, please visit donnaoblongata.com.

Playwright: Donna Oblongata; Director: Francesca Montanile Lyons; Production Design: Rita Burkholder.

Cast: Donna Oblongata (Vincent Van Gogh).