“Red,”John Logan’s play about Mark Rothko, currently at Geva Theatre, is a particularly meaty discourse about art and art-making. I was totally engrossed but the guy sitting in front of us dozed off. It probably isn’t for everyone. The play as written may even be too good for the two actors but I warmed up to them and was eventually carried away by their performance.
Abstract Expressionism out intellectualized the physicality of Cubism and then the “Barbarians at the Gate” assault of Pop Art, just as Rothko was getting successful, took down the Ab Exers. Architect, Philip Johnson, asked Rothko to create murals for a new restaurant in his Seagrams Building in Midtown Manhattan and this is the time frame for this play. A studio assistant, hired by Rothko, takes on the old man. Not by out painting him but by challenging the master to be true to his own game. Rothko eventually turns down the distasteful commission down and he sets his assistant free to carve out his own life. It is a story for the ages.
1 Comment
For me the most interesting period of Rothko’s art is at the end when he did the chapel in Houston with paintings that were almost entirely black. He always wanted his work displayed in very specific ways and it never was with the exception of the chapel. At that point he was drinking heavily and quite ill. He took his own life shortly after. The Seagram paintings went to the Tate in London.
I better get out to see that play.