'Iolani theatre teacher Rob Duval delivers a brilliant performance as Vincent Van Gogh in the Hawaii Repertory Theatre production of  Steven Dietz's "Inventing van Gogh" now playing at the Kawananakoa Backstage Theater.

Also cast in a major role is history department head Russell Motter as a modern day art dealer and as artist Paul Gaugin. The play is directed by Paul Mitri. Also in the cast are Ned Van Zandt and Hannah Schauer Galli.

On opening night, several 'Iolani teachers and students were in the audience, impressed and inspired by the entire production. 

According to the Hawaii Repertory Theater web site: A haunting and hallucinatory drama about the making of art, INVENTING VAN GOGH is the story of the final van Gogh self-portrait, painted just before the artist's death, which has never been seen…until now. Patrick Stone, a contemporary painter, is hired to forge this final masterpiece--and finds himself squaring off, across the years, with van Gogh himself. The result is a compelling mystery about the obsession to create and the fine line that separates truth from myth.

"Like a van Gogh painting, Dietz's story is a gorgeous example of excess--one that remakes reality with broad, well-chosen brush strokes. At evening's end, we're left with the author's resounding opinions on art and artifice, and provoked by his constant query into which is greater: van Gogh's art, or his violent myth." -- Phoenix New Times.

"Dietz's writing is never simple. It is always brilliant. Shaded, compressed, direct, lucid--he frames his subject with a remarkable understanding of painting as a physical experience." -- Tucson Citizen.

Remaining performances include September 5 and 6 at 7:30 pm and September 7 at 3:30 pm. The theatre is located on Pauoa Avenue in Lower Nuuanu.  Check www.hawaiireptheater.org for details.