Up to now, not much has been known about the content of the new play Toulouse-inations. People have been inquiring for more details, so here goes:Toulouse-inations is about the declining fin de siecle days of Parisian nightlife in the 1880s and 1890s, as seen through the green absinthe-drenched visions of painter Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (played by Sidney Hymson).
The play takes place on two separate sets: one is a nightclub where T-L spends much of his days propping up the bar, and the other is an adjacent brothel where he spends his nights consorting with prostitutes - but as a friend and lover, not a client.
In addition to the fascinating women in his life, a number of other peculiar characters weave their way through the woof and the warp of T-L's struggling art career. That career is imperiled continously by his bohemian lifestyle and alcoholism, which threatens his health and his sanity as his absinthe hallucinations increase in severity.
(photo above: Laundryman at the Brothel by Toulouse-Lautrec, 1894.)
