Lapis Blue Blood Red

by Cathy Caplan

Based on the tumultuous life of Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, "Lapis Blue Blood Red" dramatizes an extraordinary woman's struggle to define herself in the face of overwhelming personal and social odds. The play samples from Gentileschi's letters and the official text of the trial of the man accused of raping her and stealing one of her paintings, unveiling the passion and complexity of a true...

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Lapis Blue Blood Red

Recommended by

Gregory Paul: Lapis Blue Blood Red by Cathy Caplan

“

This is an excellent play from an intelligent and passionate playwright. Smart, lean, surprisingly funny, it's a story about an unsung life and left me thinking for a long time after seeing it. I highly recommend this play and all of Cathy Caplan's works.

This is an excellent play from an intelligent and passionate playwright. Smart, lean, surprisingly funny, it's a story about an unsung life and left me thinking for a long time after seeing it. I highly recommend this play and all of Cathy Caplan's works.

”

Character Information

Notary may be doubled. Artemisia young and old may be doubled.

Artemisia Gentileschi

Painter in training

Character Age

16 years Old

Character Gender Identity

Female
Can be played by:
- Actor Age
  
  Teens
- Actor Gender Identity
  
  Woman
Artemisia Gentileschi

Painter

Character Age

42

Character Gender Identity

Female
Can be played by:
- Actor Age
  
  30s,
  
  40s,
  
  50s
- Actor Gender Identity
  
  Woman
Agostino Tassi

Painter

Character Age

33 years old

Character Gender Identity

Male
Can be played by:
- Actor Age
  
  20s,
  
  30s,
  
  40s
- Actor Gender Identity
  
  Man
Orazio Gentileschi

Painter

Character Age

45 years old

Character Gender Identity

Male
Can be played by:
- Actor Age
  
  40s,
  
  50s,
  
  60s
- Actor Gender Identity
  
  Man
Tuzia

Upstairs tenant, romantic companion to Orazio, care taker of Artemisia, and painters' model

Character Age

20's-30's

Character Gender Identity

Female
Can be played by:
- Actor Age
  
  20s,
  
  30s
- Actor Gender Identity
  
  Woman
Cosimo Quorli

Agent for the painters

Character Age

30's-40's

Character Gender Identity

Male
Can be played by:
- Actor Age
  
  30s,
  
  40s,
  
  50s,
  
  60s,
  
  70s+
- Actor Gender Identity
  
  Man
Prudenza

Artemisia's Daughter

Character Age

22 years old

Character Gender Identity

Female
Can be played by:
- Actor Age
  
  Teens,
  
  20s
- Actor Gender Identity
  
  Woman
Francesco

Artemisia's younger brother

Character Age

27

Character Gender Identity

Male
Can be played by:
- Actor Age
  
  Teens,
  
  20s,
  
  30s
- Actor Gender Identity
  
  Man
Notary

Character Age

Any Age

Character Gender Identity

Male
Can be played by:
- Actor Age
  
  20s,
  
  30s,
  
  40s,
  
  50s,
  
  60s,
  
  70s+

Development History

Type Residency, Organization Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program, The Juilliard School, Year 1993

Production History

Type Professional, Organization Juggernaut Theatre Company, Year 2002
Type Professional, Organization Splitting Image Theater Company, Year 1995

Awards

Actor's Choice: Monologues for Men

Playscripts, Inc.

Selection

2008
Best Plays of 2002

Smith and Kraus

Selection

2002

Genre

biography,

commedia dell'arte,

docudrama/historic,

drama,

melodrama,

period

Subject Matter Keywords

Female Artists,

Artemisia,

rape and revenge

Length

60-90 minutes

Cast Size

7—8

Age of Intended Audience

ages 14-17,

ages 18 and up

Narrative Attributes

Centers Female Characters

Supporting Materials

Published Script

https://www.playscripts.com/play/437

Script Sample

Lapis Blue Blood Red Except.pdf

Reviews

The Wall Street Journal, Feb 13, 2002

“
Cathy Caplan’s play wastes no time on strident polemics and feminist hagiography. Lapis Blue Blood Red has the tautness of a “Law and Order” episode as it moves back and forth between 1612 Rome and 1638 Naples, looking at the circumstances of Artemisia’s deflowering and public disgrace, her tense relations with her father, Orazio, and daughter, Prudenza, and the determination, pragmatism and sheer talent that let her earn her own living as a painter.
”
New York Times

“
The work, by Cathy Caplan, is called ''Lapis Blue Blood Red,'' and those looking to debate Artemisiana once more (was she a protofeminist? a tramp? a B-grade artist who survives only because of a sex scandal?) will find plenty of fodder here. They won't find any resolution -- Ms. Caplan's treatment is decidedly ambiguous -- but who wants their historical characters served up in a nice, neat package anyway?
The story has plenty of modern-day resonance. The rape trial sounds much like one that might take place now (although the phrase ''Are you willing to confirm your testimony under the torture of thumbscrews?'' is rarely heard these days). And the parent-child wars are awfully familiar. ''Stand up when you paint,'' Orazio hounds his daughter. ''You're crunched over like a hunchback.'' He could be a suburban soccer dad.Ms. Caplan goes for a ''like father, like daughter'' theme, among others. There is a sublime moment when the grown Artemisia finds herself yelling at her daughter with the exact words her father once used against her.
”
New York Times

“
This season's ''it'' girl is not in the Top 40, or about to win an Oscar. She is not American and she is not even alive, and yet Artemisia Gentileschi, an Italian Baroque painter who died in 1652 or '53, is suddenly all over the place -- onstage, on screen, in the bookstores, in fashion magazines and all over the walls of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Some of this is hardly coincidental. The play ''Lapis Blue Blood Red,'' playing at Here on Spring Street in the South Village, was first produced in 1995 in Baltimore, but the author, Cathy Caplan, said its New York opening was held back until the long-delayed exhibition of paintings by Artemisia and her father, Orazio Gentileschi, opened last week at the Met.
”