“Dear Edvard,” running at the Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse through July 5, is an expansive multimedia experience. The blend of genres — music theater, performance art, and gallery installation — interweaves seamlessly to create something truly unique.
Inspired by Edvard Munch’s life and art, the performance begins with an elderly nurse, exquisitely performed by Carlyn Connolly, standing in front of the scrim projected with an image of Dr. Jacobsen’s Clinic for Nervous Disorders and Alcoholism, where Munch committed himself in 1908. With her resonant voice, Connolly sings, “Madonna Munch called me, and mother and queen. Did we share love? I’m still unsure, love.” She goes on to tell us that 60 years earlier, “I was only 18. He stormed into my life. Then he transformed my life. Was I only his nurse? Did we share something more?” This question of their relationship becomes central to the unfolding story.
Moments later, we shift in time and meet Munch, superbly played by Timothy McDevitt, as he is about to enter the clinic. He tells us a plaintive tale of his family — a mother with consumption and a father with seeds of insanity. He sings, “Their love led to madness, and death! Did they share love? Do I fear love?” At another point, he asks, “What fiend in my being is stirring, stirring, stirring? … And all I achieve in my lifetime, the poems and the drawings and paintings, won’t save them, nor render me blameless — my poems and my drawings and paintings won’t save me, nor render me blameless.”
As the now 18-year-old nurse treats Munch, we are transported back to the origins of Freudian psychoanalysis, the practice of electric-shock therapy, and most notably, the use of role-playing. Through this latter technique, we meet the significant women in the artist’s life as the nurse effortlessly slips into each character, who are entirely unlike her reserved self. Projections of Munch’s iconic portraits complement each anguished relationship. The backstories of the paintings bring them to life, allowing us to witness the emotions Munch so viscerally expresses through his art. We feel the profound truth when he shares at one point, “Each canvas, a page of my diary — they mock my confessions, and they crucify me. Only the insane could paint like this — and desire publicity’s Judas kiss.” Later, fearing that treatment might strip away his essence, Munch contemplates a familiar question surrounding some artists’ turbulent work: “Will I paint the same way when I’m sane and learn to cope?”
Connolly and McDevitt’s arresting voices are exquisite individually and transportive together. Similarly, the libretto by Richard Michelson and the music by Steven Schoenberg fully support one another, making them one. In truth, every element is essential to the production’s success — Kevin Newbury’s skillful direction, Mac Young’s inventive set design, Katy Atwell’s lighting design, Cynthia Bermudes’ costume design, and David Sytkowski’s musical direction.
Michelson recounts the journey of “Dr. Edvard,” which originated in the mid-1990s when the artist Leonard Baskin, who had rendered portraits of Munch, asked him if he would like to write about the artist. “I decided to write some poems, each spoken by a different woman in Munch’s life who had a different viewpoint on him. But if you put them all together, you would get a sense of the full character.” Michelson explains, too, “It is perfectly biographical and true in all the characters, except for the nurse. She was a real person, but she never wrote about her experience with Munch. I’m almost glad she didn’t, because it gave me license to create their relationship.”
Several years later, when Michelson was appointed Poet Laureate of Northampton, Mass., Schoenberg came across his Munch poems and asked to put them to music. When Newbury heard some of the songs, he asked if he could direct the project, which didn’t exist yet. “Steven called me and said, ‘Let’s write a show,’” Michelson recalls. After several years of work, including an early reading at the M.V. Playhouse in 2018, MJ Bruder Munafo, artistic and executive director, brought it back for this world premiere.
The collaborative effort brings the theatrical vision to life, offering us a psychological and emotional exploration of numerous themes, including the nature of love, connection, and creativity.
“Dear Edvard” plays through July 5 at the M.V. Playhouse. For more information and tickets, visit mvplayhouse.org/theater/2025/04/dear-edvard-3.
