Playwright Sara Fellini stars as Caravaggio in spit&vigor’s Nec Spe (photo by Nick Thomas)
NEC SPE: THE FINAL CONFESSION OF BRUTE PAINTER CARAVAGGIO
The Players Theatre
115 MacDougal St.
Friday, June 20, and Saturday, June 21, $20-$55, 7:30
www.spitnvigor.com
In past productions, the New York City–based spit&vigor has staged works dealing with such real-life figures from centuries ago as Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Shelley (Mary’s Little Lamb), Irish madam Dorcas Kelly (The Wake of Dorcas Kelly), the Booth brothers (The Brutes), and Hungarian serial killer Elizabeth Báthory (Blood Countess).
The company is now reaching back to its 2019 show, Nec Spe (No Hope), which was initially presented with Nec Metu (No Fear); the former featured Adam Belvo as Italian Baroque painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the latter Sara Fellini as his contemporary, Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi. This time around, troupe cofounding artistic director Fellini, who wrote the plays, will take on the role of Caravaggio, and it will be staged at spit&vigor’s tiny baby blackbox space at the Players Theatre, where I saw the excellent Anonymous in February.
In a January 2022 twi-ny talk with Fellini, she noted, “I’ve always been into history. I have trouble relating to the modern world. . . . So, while a lot of the ideas and prejudices of the past are nonsense and based in ignorance and inexperience, I do think there’s a lot to be learned from people who spent all of their time noticing, negotiating, and navigating other human beings.”
Directed by Megan Medley, the play, which deals with art, gender, politics, and murder both in the past and how it relates to what is happening today, will have two more performances, June 20 and 21, and tickets are almost gone, so act fast to check out this unique exploration of an important and influential artist.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]