John Logan's play about the painter Mark Rothko, Red, under Michael Grandage's direction, performed by two outstanding actors, Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as his helper, is quite interesting as a piece of intelligent theatre full of ideas about Art and The World. The painter's studio set by Christopher Oram has a dramatically realistic flavor, and lighting by Neil Austin supports the play as the action moves.
Still, I have a skewed view of the play -- I'm familiar not only with the progression of Rothko's life's work but also with what he actually said about it. The play takes place as he changes his painted perspective from the most familiar (almost) window shapes, with a top and bottom, to what seemed, as he declined spiritually towards his end, to vertical bars (maybe he was behind them), in which, gradually, more and more, the negativity of black overtook the red, finally into an ultimate: black on black. His very last painting was a bright red splash in his usual "window" form with a thin streak of white separating the top from the bottom. After that scream, he left the planet.
The only comments about his work Rothko himself made are such as: "I paint very large pictures," and "I found the figure could not serve my purposes." But that is all only background, and Logan has distilled much from the reality of the paintings, and added what he thought Rothko might have said about his work to an assistant. That's justifiable dramatic license, and the play, and the theatrical experience of Red, including comments on Jackson Pollock, Rembrandt, Picasso and others, is really good and engaging drama. There is even the exciting interlude when Rothko and his assistant do a lively Paint Dance as they energetically paint the undercoat on a new canvas.
So ignore my musings on actuality, and you'll enjoy a smart, stimulating experience created by a bunch of master artists.
