Andy Warhol’s Tomato

Andy Warhol’s Tomato tells us—and shows us—that art is a living thing, always open to new interpretations. It asks big questions: Who decides what is art? What makes a man? How can we find common ground when the divide feels so wide? More importantly, it offers beautiful answers to those questions.

This is art.

If you have even a passing familiarity with the artist, you’ll get the inside jokes: there’s the soup can, a coke bottle, 15 minutes of fame. But more than a little familiarity, like more than a little expectation will probably trip you up.

I’ll leave it to the art historians but the play’s artistic origin story for Warhol - a kind of blue collar ‘keep it simple’ ‘a tomato is beautiful because it’s a simple tomato’ message doesn’t really bear itself out in Warhol’s actual aesthetic vision. But there is something tantalizing about the origins of genius. Even though “Tomato” is a more of a sketch than a full canvas, if you can let go of expectations it’s a simple, sweet story.

Derek Chariton is brilliant as Warhol, a sly child with the wisdom of a sage. Keith Stevenson is deeply moving as a man whose dreams have been crushed by harsh reality. The play reveals the effect that their brief friendship has on each of them. Directed with sensitivity by Dana Jackson.

Wonderfully written, superbly performed, well-directed by Dana Jackson, perfect scenic design by Rich Rose, all makes for a production you won't want to miss.

With a well-written script and two very capable actors breathing life into quirky Andy and stolid Bonesy, ANDY WARHOL’S TOMATO has taken a cute and certainly untrue story from Andy Warhol’s early life and turned it into a play with a profound and timeless message for all. Kudos for director Dana Jackson’s tender handling of dynamics which, in lesser hands, might falter. Light and projection designer Andrew Schmedake has done a brilliant job of turning the dull and dim basement into a place of light and life. Rich Rose’s scenic design has just the right grimy feel, and the entire production staff functions with creative competence. ANDY WARHOL’S TOMATO is a not-to-be-missed study of what goes into achieving the goals of self-understanding and acceptance. And, besides, it’s an entertaining and often humorous evening out.

Under the keen direction of Dana Jackson, the relationship that develops between the two men, who are so radically different, has its fits and starts. Andy and Bones are seemingly from different universes, yet first impressions gradually change. I don’t believe it serves to detail more of the action of the play. That is for the audience to discover and to be touched by. Suffice it to say that the road to the climax of any good play is fraught with twists, turns, conflict, and misunderstandings that ratchet up dramatic tension.

Playwright Melocchi has clearly done his homework with respect to historical accuracy. Nevertheless, the play offers more than a biographical sketch thanks to the reciprocal fleeting connection between Chariton’s Warhol and Stevenson’s equally complex performance as Bones, a sympathetic Everyman who harbors an unfulfilled dream of becoming a writer.

The skill of Melocchi’s writing is matched by the remarkable acting work by Stevenson and Chariton. Together they breathe life into every line of Melocchi’s text, creating flesh-and-blood characters that hold you in thrall from start to finish.

...Andy Warhol’s Tomato is a strong and entertaining production about a unique artist. As Bones says in the play, “There is beauty in the mundane.” This show has found it. - RECOMMENDED

What Vince Melocchi’s new play has to say about the human condition as we all spin out of control on this risky ol’ orb we call home is what makes it so compelling. Van Gogh once said that great artists are the simplifiers of our existence. If we all stop alienating one another by focusing on our differences, instead trusting and finding motivation in the things we share that make us the same, our species’ ability to dream big dreams could become reality far more often.

The world premiere of playwright Vince Melocchi's Andy Warhol'S TOMATO receives a solid mounting at the Pacific Resident Theatre. Dana Jackson directs this fictionalized two-hander on the possible beginnings of pop artist icon Andy Warhol, with a deft hand and a meticulous eye for character development via the subtle physical actions of the two wonderfully convincing actors - Derek Chariton as Andy Warhol and Keith Stevenson as Bones Bonino, the owner of the bar's storage room which TOMATO entirely takes place in.