John Logan's "Red' at Suzanne Roberts (2nd review)

John Logan's Red dramatizes the ageless tension between art and commerce. Yet we shouldn't think that every artist suffers like the subject of this play. Mark Rothko was singular.

The script shows a painter full of anger and even some paranoia. According to Rothko, the then-young artists Johns, Rauschenberg, Stella and Lichtenstein were "out to murder me."

Before his suicide in 1970, Rothko was known to cognoscenti, if not the masses, for his giant rectangular washes of color. In this gripping drama, playwright John Logan brings Rothko to life again.

Red takes place inside Rothko's New York studio over a period of two years (1958-59), when the artist was paid $30,000 (then a huge sum) to paint large-scale murals for the Four Seasons restaurant inside the new Seagram building, at the invitation of the building's architects, Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson.

Rothko hires a young assistant, played by Haley Joel Osment, to help him stretch his canvases and mix his paints, go out for food and listen to his rants against rival painters, gallery owners and art critics. The apprentice grows to distrust his employer, who has accepted money to put his work inside a commercial space but preaches constantly about sticking to one's principles.

By contrast, Frank Gehry

Must every creative artist live in such constant torment? Not necessarily. I can't help but think of the architect Frank Gehry, whom I met a few years ago.

Both Rothko and Gehry came to the U.S. as Jewish immigrants (Rothko from Russia, Gehry from Canada.) Both were advised to change their names to help advance their careers (Rothko from Marcus Rothkowitz, Gehry from Efraim Goldberg.) Both toiled for years before they received acclaim in middle age.

But Rothko was a roaring bull who was tortured by the idea that he was selling out. Gehry faced similar accusations but accepted them with equanimity.

When I asked him why, after designing the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao he took on commercial projects such as designing jewelry for Tiffany, he replied: "Do you mean, why did I sell out? I didn't seek it, but I went along with it because I can play with my children, so to speak. It's one-on-one between the idea and the craft. I'm designing three-dimensional objects, working directly."

Physical labor

Stephen Rowe inhabits the part of Rothko thoroughly, making us feel that we're meeting a real person. Precisely because Rowe lacks the celebrity profile of Alfred Molina, who played the role in London and on Broadway, we're not distracted by memories of him in movie roles and he's easier to accept as Rothko.

Anders Cato's dynamic direction prevents the play from lapsing into a talky dissertation. The most exciting minutes come halfway through when Rothko and his apprentice prime a canvas. A large representation of a blank canvas stands downstage. Behind it, facing the audience, Rothko and his assistant slosh into a bucket of blood-red paint, covering the canvas, the stage and each other. You literally see the hard physical labor that goes into a work of art.

"'Ruin their appetites'

Rothko's paintings never did hang at the Seagram building. After visiting the restaurant one night near the project deadline, he declared: "I hope to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who eats there." Instead he shelved the project and returned his advance.

But surely Rothko comprehended all along the ostentatious nature of the Four Seasons and the affluent social class from which it would draw its patrons. So the exact motive for his quitting remains a mystery.♦


To read another review by Dan Rottenberg, click here.
To read a related comment by Jim Rutter, click here.