When Spock met Van Gogh: One-man play ‘Vincent' challenges misconceptions about famed painter
Vincent Van Gogh may have been an artistic genius, but the only thing you can be sure every grade-schooler remembers about him is that he cut off his own ear.
That's led to a complicated legacy for the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter, who is nearly as immortalized in pop culture for his supposed madness as he is for his unique works of art.
It's probably not a surprise that a more complex and nuanced view of Van Gogh's mental health would eventually arise, but not many know that when he died in 1890, someone was already challenging the idea that he had been "crazy" - his brother, Theo Van Gogh.
In fact, Theo was obsessed with proving that while his brother did indeed suffer from mental breakdowns, he was not insane in the way that he was being portrayed as his fame grew after his death.
That obsession rubbed off on, of all people, Leonard Nimoy — best known for portraying Mr. Spock on TV's "Star Trek," but also a bit of a Renaissance Man as an author, poet and singer. In perhaps the best-regarded episode of "In Search Of…," the pseudoscientific TV show to which Nimoy lent his narration, the former Vulcan dived into a very personal and rather intense exploration of Theo's battle to correct Vincent's legacy.
Nimoy also wrote and performed "Vincent," a one-man play based on the story. When Charles Pasternak, the artistic director of Santa Cruz Shakespeare, was looking for a simple but elegant play for the company's first spring production, he was drawn to Theo Van Gogh's obsession in the same way Nimoy had been.
The play is set in a lecture hall in 1890, as Theo (played by Pasternak) recounts his memories of Vincent and beseeches the audience - and the world - to understand his brother.
Pasternak believes Theo's crusade resonates now more than ever.
"He is infuriated at how the world dismisses and marginalizes his brother by writing him off as ‘crazy' - and in a grander scheme, how we as a civil society marginalize and dismiss our artists, these visionaries, these people who change our point of view on the world," said Pasternak. "Theo suffered because he loved Vincent and saw him suffering."
Another thing that attracted Pasternak to "Vincent," which is being performed at the Santa Cruz Veterans Memorial Building through May 10, is that like Van Gogh's paintings, it offered a lot of layers.
"What I think one-person shows often suffer from is the idea of just one person talking for so long," he said. "But here I get to play Theo, and then through Theo’s memory, I often get to play Vincent. And the whole time there are projections running — there are some photos, some early sketches, and then later in Vincent’s life, we start getting his great masterpieces. So even though it’s all me, there are sort of three actors on the stage. There’s Theo, there's Vincent, and there’s Vincent’s work. And those three are in very active conversation, which I think makes it a more engaging one-person show than most."
Like the rest of us, Pasternak knew Nimoy as Spock long before he knew him as a playwright. But he thinks what the actor and writer captured in "Vincent" is a moving tribute to both Vincent and Theo Van Gogh.
"I think what Nimoy really achieved that, in my limited experience, other storytellers around Vincent Van Gogh haven't, is that he centers the story around Theo, who was a very reasonable, practical man," said Pasternak. "So you’re looking at Vincent - his brother, this genius whom he loves more than anything in the world, but he has a really practical and often very comedic point of view on Vincent’s foibles. You get his love of Vincent, and you absolutely get a picture of Vincent’s genius, but you get a much more human portrait of him."
“Vincent” runs through May 10 at the Veterans Memorial Building in Santa Cruz; go to santacruzshakespeare.com/performances/vincent for more information and tickets.
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This story was originally published May 2, 2026 at 4:15 AM.