Theatre Added to Amazon Prime yesterday was the extremely rare ($117.99 on dvd from Amazon.com) recording of Nimoy's one man show about the life of Vincent Van Gogh. The style is similar to the various Simon Cowell staged biographies of Shakespeare and Dickens. Nimoy's approach (inspired by an earlier play) is to assume the character of the painter's brother Theo, explaining the important his sibling's work to an imagined theatre filled with his family. friends and peers, utilising the letters collected by Theo's wife after both of their deaths.
Watching it tonight, I was struck with just how gifted Nimoy was, making his wariness at become synonymous with the Vulcan, as mentioned in this textual explanation for the play, at that time somewhat understandable. This would have been between the Motion Picture and Khan, when having reluctantly returned to the role having refused initially when Trek was going to revive as a television series, he obviously saw the potential for typecasting to continue. Though a glance at the imdb indicates on screen at least he didn't play many more characters than Spock in this period.
If you don't have Prime you can hire the stream for £3.99 (£1.99 on YouTube) and it's definitely worth it even if you're just interested in the history of arts television. As well as a recording of the stage production, Nimoy appears as himself inside his dressing room apparently before and after the performance to provide further exposition on Vincent and Theo of the kind which which wouldn't have worked in the context and footage of the various locations mentioned in the play such as Vincent's cell at the asylum and his final resting place, that appear to be clips from this thing.
Here's Nimoy himself just prior to his death talking about the play on the occasion of a New York revival, with clips of Jean-Michel "additional voices in Frozen" Richaud taking on the role:
Leonard Nimoy on Vincent from Jean-Michel Richaud on Vimeo.
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