Gauguin’s Shadow

Using spellbinding theatrical imagination, masks, puppets, and Gauguin’s own words and video projections of his art, Gauguin’s Shadow celebrates and confronts the life and myths of the artist during the hundredth anniversary of his death. The popular myth is that Paul Gauguin left a lucrative career as a stockbroker and abandoned his wife and five children to pursue his calling as an artist. After a time of painting together, Gauguin deserted his friend Vincent van Gogh, who, that same night, cut off his earlobe and then entered a lunatic asylum. Gauguin left France and lived in Tahiti, where he suffered from syphilis while cavorted with teenage island girls, struggled with poverty, attempted suicide, fought for native rights, painted some of the greatest masterpieces in the history of art, and died in 1903 at age 54.

Fred Curchack has created over seventy original theatre works, twenty-three of them solos. His performances have been featured at dozens of international theater festivals. He has received the Gold Medal at the International Festival of Solo Theater, the American Theater Wing Award, Critics’ Awards in L.A., S.F., Dallas, Austin, and his work has been in the “Top Ten” of The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News. He has received funding from Creative Capital, The Jim Henson Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, Arts International, and he is a Guggenheim Fellow. Curchack has studied Indian Kathakali, Japanese Noh, Balinese Topeng, choreography with Alwyn Nikolais, and he trained with Grotowski’s Polish Theater Lab.