The Virgin w / 10,000 Arrows

The Virgin w/ 10,000 Arrows

Larry L. King Theatre at Austin Playhouse, 3601 S. Congress

Through Aug. 1

Running time: 2 hr.

Andres Marca Relli has a pain in his belly. Sometimes it hits him so hard he falls to the floor, writhes, and passes out. As a teenager painting on the street, painting on anything he could find and with anything he could find, he was happy selling a painting for $10. But now, at the age of 26, selling his work for millions upon millions of dollars, he numbs himself with illicit-drug cocktails, isolates himself from the world, and paints because he doesn't feel he has any other choice.

But he does.

In this Debutantes & Vagabonds production of Jason Tremblay's original script, directed by Francisco Rodriguez, Andres Marca Relli is the quintessential tortured artist. Tremblay used extant source material to compose the play, and Marca Relli's story – that he stole seven of his own canvases from a gallery in New York, traveled to San Francisco, and committed suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge – sounds like it actually happened, but it didn't. And in writing all that it may sound as if I've given the plot away, but I haven't. Tremblay lays out the story at the beginning, and we watch as if in a dream, with characters speaking directly to us, then acting as if we don't exist, some drifting on and off the stage, some observing then leaving, all accompanied live throughout by Joey Reyes' haunting and appropriate cello. One other thing that remains constant: the canvas at the center of the stage. A blank white surface at the beginning, as the play progresses, Marca Relli and the other characters mark it until, at the end, it's a finished, expressionistic piece, embodying the themes of the play in splashes and slashes of color, with one piece standing out in stark contrast right at the end, as the lights dim, trying to convince us of something we already know in our bones.

Rodriguez stages the play with delicate care. Some scenes play slowly and deliberately, with much silence, and others play quickly, almost violently, especially the scenes in which Marca Relli paints, bursting with sudden inspiration. Rodriguez is fortunate to have Travis Emery playing Marca Relli. Thin and bearded, paint covering his clothing and, by the end, his hands and his face and even his tongue, the very likable Emery is totally believable as the artistic savant. Likable too is Don Stewart as Carlton, a guard who narrates much of the play and is the surprising beneficiary of Marca Relli's largesse. Noel Gaulin as Marca Relli's drug buddy, Pea, provides a bounty of comic relief to what is a very heavy story.

But it has to be. Expressionism, by its nature, is considerably more dramatic than comic. And Tremblay is playing with some very big ideas here, especially the idea that, by owning the art, you own the artist. You own a piece of him. You take him apart, bit by bit. Yes, Andres Marca Relli does exist. And should you attend, you can help him die, if you like.