As an illegitimate son, Leonardo da Vinci could not have a "noble" profession like his father, a notary. Now, 557 years after his birth, the circumstances of his out-of-wedlock birth don't factor into our iconic image of the man considered one of the most diversely talented figures in history.

Through history, he's become known as the model of the Renaissance man for his artistic, scientific and technological knowledge and ideas. But Utah playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett says the genius was also a fallible human with his own doubts and regrets.

"I set out to crack the myth," Bennett said of "Di Esperienza," his new play about da Vinci, which will receive a Plan-B world-premiere production on April 3. "The collective image we have of Leonardo is of a gray-bearded sage. He almost has the same status of a person who is a master of all elements and all things. So that's what I wanted to crack."

"Di Esperienza" is a dissection of the man, the myth and the self-doubt of da Vinci, a play developed in a rare collaboration with Salt Lake City's Leonardo science and technology museum and the Utah Shakespearean Festival's New American Playwrights Project. According to Plan-B's producing director, Jerry Rapier, Bennett's work is only the third play in the English language to be written about da Vinci.

Because da Vinci lived five centuries ago, the artist's larger-than-life stature is harder to decipher. "We wanted to deconstruct him," said Rapier, who is directing the show. "Look at him as a person instead of the sum of his parts. Get to know him and make him accessible so that people can see themselves in his work."

Roughly biographical, the drama portrays da Vinci from age 10 to just days before his death. "I knew that to make my play unique I had to see the younger Leonardo," the playwright said. "I wanted to see the root. I didn't just want to write a play about his final years, the Leonardo who had already arrived."

Seeing da Vinci go through trial and toil allows the audience to experience his intelligence as a result of hard work and perseverance, rather than just innate ability, Bennett says. The genius was known to have a difficult time finishing projects because of his variety of interests. It is known, for example, that he taught himself Latin during his 40s.

In the drama, the artist comes face-to-face with three of his incomplete works of art: Judas Iscariot from The Last Supper; La Gioconda, known as the Mona Lisa; and Isabella d'Este, whose portrait he sketched but never finished. These images press him for an answer to the question scribbled in his notebooks: "Tell me if anything has ever been achieved."

More simply, they want to know why he didn't finish them. Why were they left incomplete?

The painted images become judges, questioning da Vinci's achievements and failures. They want to know who they are and how they relate to his accomplishments. Can he be known separate from his work?

Playing the role of the master is Michael Brusasco, who helped workshop the play at the Utah Shakespearean Festival in August 2008, and recently played Tybalt in Pioneer Theatre Company's production of "Romeo and Juliet."

"It's a challenging play because it's incredibly dense," said the actor, who is required to quote many lines from da Vinci's notebooks. "This man had so many ideas and had such a hard time articulating them so he took a technical approach."

Through the character's dream-like artistic dialogues with himself, the play aims to convey the humility of his genius. "With great people, they are people who have the same faults we everyday people have," Brusasco said. "This play is there to reflect the humanity of this man. Our idea of him is skewed in his mythology, and not his humanity."

A disciple of experience

Plan-B's "Di Esperienza" plays April 3-19 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center's Studio Theatre, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City. Curtain is at 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $20 ($10 students), available at 801-355-ARTS or www.planbtheatre.org/diesperienza. First-week performances are already sold out in the small theater, but tickets remain for second-week shows.