Would you like to share my bottle of wine and talk? Sometimes strangers can have the most intimate conversations…

So begins the original play acclaimed by audiences as “profound,” ”spellbinding,” “unforgettable.”

Setting: We are in a café in Auvers, France, surrounded by some of Vincent van Gogh’s most iconic works of art. The year is 1890.

The Postman Joseph Roulin of Arles has just arrived. For several seconds he poses, silent, still, the embodiment of van Gogh’s 1888 portrait of him—one of 26 portraits of the Roulin family created by the artist. Then, the portrait comes to life!

On Saturday, September 26, from 3 – 4 pm at the Lyme Art Association, author/educator/Screen Actors Guild actor Ted Zalewski, as Vincent’s loyal friend the Postman Joseph Roulin, relates van Gogh’s amazing personal and artistic journey from his native Holland to the south of France. Drawn from extensive research into van Gogh’s art, life and letters, Van Gogh: A Portrait by the Postman Roulin is filled with humor, passion, joie de vivre—and the triumph of an enduring friendship.

“Such a good soul and so wise and so full of feeling and so trustful..” Vincent van Gogh writes of his friend, Joseph Roulin, to his brother Theo van Gogh in 1889.

Ted Zalewski in Van Gogh: A Portrait by the Postman Roulin is “A masterpiece of writing and performance”.