NEC SPE (THE LAST CONFESSION OF THE BRUTE PAINTER CARAVAGGIO)
Written and Performed by Sara Fellini; Directed by Megan Medley
spit&vigor’s Tiny Baby Blackbox | 115 MacDougal Street, NYC
June 13 - June 21
Since its inception in 2014, the theatre company known as spit&vigor has quietly — yet powerfully — established itself as one of New York’s most compelling independent theater companies. Eschewing traditional proscenium stages, this bold collective specializes in site-specific and intimately immersive productions that seem to breathe with the very walls around them. Whether performing in historically charged locales or within the close quarters of their own lovingly named spit&vigor tiny baby blackbox, their work is always rooted in space — both physical and emotional.
When first produced a decade ago, this play, Nec Spe, was part of the audacious double bill of spectral confessionals and existential provocation known as Nec Spe/Nec Metu (Latin for no hope/no fear), which paired the Caravaggio tale, performed by actor Adam Belvo, with that of Artemisia Gentileschi, a female painter influenced by Caravaggio’s technique, performed by Sara Fellini. They were a twin set of monodramas that are as haunting as they are intellectually sumptuous. Together, they presented a deeply intimate theatrical endeavor that stages the echoing lament of two wayfaring phantoms, each desperate not merely to be remembered, but to be understood on their own volatile, often contradictory terms. They are no ordinary ghost stories: they are raw, sinewy portraits of souls caught between damnation and legacy, rendered against the decadent backdrop of post-Renaissance Italy.
Now presented as a standalone work, Nec Spe finds us in a “conversation” with a visionary of chiaroscuro and scandal, a rogue saint of the oil-painted underworld — Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, the notorious Baroque master whose brushstrokes carved both sanctity and sin in equal measure — as he is dragged forth from history’s shadow to make one final, aching confession. Dressed in a sumptuous black doublet, breeches, stockings and shoes all in tatters and bloodstains, his swagger and violent personality leave us to question whether he truly wants his sins washed away, or whether he would rather justify his actions in the eyes of God and man.
Nec Spe plunges us into the fevered, unquiet afterlife of Caravaggio whose chiaroscuro canvases were matched only by the chiaroscuro of his tormented life. Here, Caravaggio, as interpreted through a solitary and searing performance by Sara Fellini, delivers a confessional of sorts to an ambiguous interlocutor—be it priest, angel, memory, or figment, played by the previous Caravaggio, Adam Belvo. What follows is a blistering psychological striptease: a man who painted saints with the eyes of sinners now seeks absolution for a life soaked in brilliance and blood. Yet this is no gentle repentance. Caravaggio spits, snarls, seduces, and swings between hubris and humility with volatile abandon. He careens from weeping joy to seismic rage, all the while working hard against his own dark mind and where it takes him.
We are left to wonder: does he truly crave forgiveness, or is he attempting—perhaps for the last time—to shape the narrative of his own damnation? Is he pleading to God, or performing for history? The violence of his personality, like the chiaroscuro of his palette, casts long shadows across his every word. In the end, redemption here feels less like a destination and more like a fever dream—the fever dream of a man both repelled by and addicted to his own myth.
In Fellini’s masterwork, the tempestuous artist emerges not merely as an icon of artistic rebellion, but as a flesh-and-blood man — bruised, broken, and thrashing with rage and remorse. With the blood of saints and sinners on his hands, he staggers before the audience — not seeking redemption, but bartering, pleading, demanding to be heard.
Forever named for his birthplace, Caravaggio was a blasphemous genius who immortalized paupers as martyrs, a menace who turned candlelight into anguish, and a “bad boy” whose penetrating lens on masculinity, violence, and the human form would not be echoed again until the cinematic chiaroscuro of film noir — centuries too late.
Fellini’s pen is wickedly sharp and luminously sensitive, offering a portrayal of the artist that is at once unflinching and darkly ecstatic. And indeed, she dares to illuminate Caravaggio’s entangled psyche in a manner that the painter himself might have not only approved, but demanded. In his life, as in his canvases, he admits “I struggle with martyrdom. I don’t know transcendence.” The reward for this experience is that Fellini’s play is presented within spit&vigor’s intimate setting for a gathering of only 14 audience members at one time.
The role of Caravaggio — brutal, seductive, haunted — is embodied with harrowing gravitas by Fellini herself, a performer who has brought this tortured soul to life across a stunning array of sacred and profane spaces. It is a gender swap that would have brought a smile to the painter. Each scene draws its blood and revelation — and director Megan Medley is unafraid to plumb the depths of despair to find the heart still beating beneath. Caravaggio’s brilliant mind, as it pivots, is often a scary place to be. “Moths are singed when they fly at the candle, looking for the deepest darkness behind the light. Their wings erupt in hellfire, ignited by their own doomed passion, and here I am, the counterpoint to the moth, searching the darkness for light.” With Nec Spe, Fellini has crafted not merely a play but a dark communion — a reckoning with genius and gender, beauty and brutality, in the voice of a man screaming into the abyss… and daring us to look back.
Nec Spe closed with the June 21 performance.
Fight Choreo and Ethereal Priest - Adam Belvo
Set & Prop Design - Sara Fellini
Sound & Light Design - Megan Medley
Costume Design - Virginia Davis
Review by Tony Marinelli.
Published by Theatre Beyond Broadway on June 29, 2025. All rights reserved.