In the fall of 1888, a desperate Vincent Van Gogh persuades fellow renegade artist Paul Gauguin to join him in the south of France. The idea is that the two of them will found a safe haven for similarly progressive, commercially outcast painters. However, Van Gogh and Gauguin alone prove a tragically volatile combination, erupting in phenomenal creativity and psychological trauma. Their grand experiment ends before Christmas, with Van Gogh sans a left ear and both men changed forever.
In this 2-person post-Impressionist musical, William BJ Robinson stars as Vincent Van Gogh. Robinson is an accomplished pianist as well as stage actor, with multiple classical and musical theater roles to his credit. Paul Araujo is featured as Paul Gauguin. In addition to stage roles around the city, Araujo has been the lead vocalist for multiple rock and Latin bands. As Gauguin he accompanies himself on a sea-foam green stratocaster guitar, complementing Robinson’s keyboard skills as Van Gogh. Creating music becomes the metaphor for painting, with projections delivering the sensational artwork these two men actually painted.
THE YELLOW HELL is written and directed by Kent Brisby, with a score by Stu Shames. The two met during a national tour of THE WIZARD OF OZ, and currently have multiple projects together in various states of development, including the cult musical A FEW HOURS IN HELL. THE YELLOW HELL is part 2 of a trilogy about artistic expression in a time of enormous social change, and the personal price of creativity.