BY BOB CURTRIGHT

The Wichita Eagle

The question in Steven Dietz's "Inventing Van Gogh" is whether great art requires great suffering. Would Vincent Van Gogh be as revered today if his colorful, muscular messes had been painted by some happy-go-lucky husband and father?

Would he even be remembered if he hadn't cut off his ear and committed suicide at 37? Is the myth more important than the man?

Dietz's provocative play, given a vigorous Midwest premiere by Center Theatre, indicates that "It's not the painting, it's the history of the painting" and that "People prefer the best story."

The drama takes place in the present but crosses over for visits from the past with Van Gogh and others. It's structured so that the past flows in and out of the present without warning, with some actors playing dual roles.

It takes a minute to figure it out but director Shaun-Michael Morse helpfully gives us light cues as clues.

The show is cynically entertaining with witty, albeit sometimes glib, lines about artists, critics, forgers, fakes, snobs, dilettantes, museums, commercialism and art as religion. You don't have to be an art fanatic to enjoy it.

The plot concerns a painter named Patrick Stone (John Sommerhauser) suffering artist's block who is conned by an unscrupulous art authenticator (Jason Miller) into forging Van Gogh's legendary but missing final self-portrait.

The artist's late mentor (Keith Boyer) had been obsessed with finding that portrait, which some declare never existed. The mentor's daughter (Stacy Chestnut), neglected because of the obsession, thinks her father's life was a waste.

If Patrick forges the painting, he will give meaning to his mentor's life work and repair the estrangement with the daughter. If he doesn't, he may be questioned about his mentor's strange death, which seems to parallel Van Gogh's.

While Patrick is agonizing over the decision, Van Gogh (Bryan Welsby) appears, befriends him, then confronts him over the nature of creativity. Welsby is a compelling, haunted figure trying to make a case for himself and Sommersby is solid as his brooding modern foil.

In dual roles, Miller is deliciously arrogant as the authenticator and grandly boisterous as Van Gogh's painter buddy, Paul Gaugin.

Boyer is elegantly professorial as the obsessed mentor and amusingly giddy as Van Gogh's doctor. And Chestnut is a lovely, willful presence as the women who change both artists' lives.

Back 24.02.2006.