Innocence

Set in Rome on May 29, 1606 (the day Caravaggio killed Rannuccio Tomassoni), this play shows the artist/hero consorting with whores and rent boys, pimping for his patron, suffering for his lust for blood and violence and, in a death-filled dream, encountering his sister who expired in childbirth, Caravaggio is depicted as an agonised, self-destructive, homosexual anarchist; yet at the same time, he is told by the Cardinal, 'You believe with a depth that is frightening and vision that is divine'. 'Innocence' premiered at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, in October 1986.