Vickie Rozell

Director/Dramaturg, Author, Editor

Nicholas Wright has spent his life working in various arms of the British theatre. He trained at The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and acted with the Old Vic touring company. He then moved into film and television as an assistant director before becoming casting director at the Royal Court Theatre in London. He became the first director of their Theatre Upstairs when it opened in 1969 and was the joint Artistic Director from 1975-77. Wright then became Literary Manager of the Royal National Theatre in 1984, serving as Associate Director of the company from 1984- 1998.

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In addition to these prestigious positions, he has been a successful playwright for many years. His plays, which have been produced at major theatres throughout London, include Treetops,One Fine Day, The Gorky Brigade, The Crimes of Vautrin, The Custom of the Country, The Desert Air, Mrs. Klein, Cressida, and a two-part adaptation of His Dark Materials. He has also written versions of the plays John Gabriel Borkman, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Therese Raquin, and Lulu.

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When he was writing Vincent in Brixton, Wright says, “Originally I was just very, very intrigued by the fact that [Van Gogh] lived [in England]. It’s one of those odd facts. It’s very hard to assimilate because it’s so much the opposite of what you’d expect. We think of Vincent so much as the painter of sunny skies and sunflowers and vivid Mediterranean colors. You don’t connect him with the world of sooty streets and clanking milk bottles, and I found that very intriguing.”

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Wright sees Van Gogh’s stay in England as a formative experience in the artist’s life, believing that “if he hadn’t stayed in England, if he hadn’t had the experience of working class life in London, of British politics, of the very English idea which came from Ruskin and William Morris of art having social significance and being at its greatest in scenes from working life, I think it’s very possible his work would have taken a different turn. Also he learnt Shakespeare; Dickens was terribly, terribly important for him. He was very influenced by illustrations of Dickens and the scenes of the hardship of poverty and working life that he found in Dickens. All those things were things that he got [in England].”

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From those beliefs, the sketchy details in Vincent’s letters to his brother Theo, and from the book Young Vincent by Martin Baily, Wright fashioned a story of Vincent’s stay in Brixton. Much of Wright’s story is true—Vincent lived with the Loyer’s and worked for the art dealer Goupil & Co. in London; he read and admired Dickens and Jules Michelet; his sister Anna joined him in Brixton while looking for work in England. However, some things about Van Gogh's life in England will never be known, and it is in these spaces that Wright fills in his story.

 

The London premiere of Vincent in Brixton won the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2003 and the Broadway version was nominated for the Tony Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and Drama League Award.

 

© Vickie Rozell, All Rights Reserved

Reproduction only with permission