{"id":488,"date":"2024-11-07T17:13:44","date_gmt":"2024-11-07T17:13:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/?p=488"},"modified":"2024-11-07T17:15:15","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T17:15:15","slug":"red-the-heavy-costs-of-great-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/?p=488","title":{"rendered":"RED: The Heavy Costs of Great Art"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Richard Lord<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not science fiction: Logan\u2019s run has been astounding. I\u2019m referring, of course, to the career of John Logan.

John Logan is a playwright and screenwriter who has been not only impressively prolific, but also extremely successful. As a screenwriter, he\u2019s scored big with Any Given Sunday,<\/em> Sweeney Todd<\/em>, Gladiator<\/em>, The Aviator<\/em> as well as the James Bond films Skyfall<\/em> and Spectre <\/em>(the first of which was highly praised by fans and critics, the second rather less so).

However, Logan started his professional writing career turning out works for the stage, not the screen. In fact, he had written five successful plays before he crafting his first screenplays. In an address to BAFTA (the British Academy of Film and Television Arts), Logan let us know which of the two he has a slight preference for: \u201cThere was no place and there is no place that I am more at home and more excited than in a theatre, whether it\u2019s a huge Broadway house or a teeny little pub theatre. It makes no difference to me, it is the magical event. The transformative event of my life is theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his screenplays and, especially, his stage plays, Logan is often drawn to controversial real-life figures. His first successful play, Never The Sinner<\/em>, scrutinized the calculating child-killers Leopold and Loeb. In later works, he turned to figures such as Richard Bruno Hauptmann (known as the Lindbergh baby kidnapper), the baffling billionaire Howard Hughes, and Sue Mengers, the implacable Hollywood talent agent.

But Logan\u2019s most successful stage play, by far, is Red<\/em>, whose central character is the artist Mark Rothko. Red<\/em> is a challenging but brilliant play, and it has now been given an excellent staging by Theatre Exile.

Red<\/em> looks at a vexing period in Rothko\u2019s life, running from 1958 to early 1960. As the play opens, it seems more like a golden period for Rothko than a troubled time. He has just received a commission to paint a series of murals for the new restaurant enhancing the Seagram Building in New York, then under construction. The commission leaves Rothko flush with cash (a $35,000 advance payment \u2013 roughly $378,000 in today\u2019s dollars) and deeply conflicted. He appreciates that this commission allows him to make some important artistic statement with his large works. (By the late 1950s, Rothko was very big on big canvas paintings.) He\u2019s also not at all unhappy with the money. Rothko\u2019s inner conflict arises from where his murals will end up. The Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram was an upscale dining venue which mainly drew the rich and powerful, and this did not suit Rothko at all.

From the beginning of his career, Rothko \u2013 himself an Eastern European immigrant with leftward leanings \u2013 had taken delight in driving the bourgeoisie to the heights of distraction. He supposedly was always ready to spew caustic remarks about wealthy art lovers who had purchased his paintings to hang on the walls of their homes. So having his murals grace the swank restaurant where those rich and powerful dined rankled him. In one incident included in Logan\u2019s play, Rothko decided to drop in at the Four Seasons for a meal and was appalled at the clientele and their demeanor. Following this visit, his doubts about the project only grew deeper.

But Rothko\u2019s conflict over restaurant murals was simply Logan\u2019s way of \u201cpriming the canvas\u201d, as it were. The more important elements in Red <\/em>involve overarching themes of the value of art; the purpose and the nature of an artistic production; what the artist owes to his\/her public; and what that public owes to the artist. Also, how much leeway should we give a brilliant artist who is often an obnoxious egomaniac.

These are, of course, perennially important themes, but such themes can be treated quite well, and certainly more thoroughly, in essays or chapters in a volume of art criticism. What makes Red<\/em> such an absorbing piece of theatre are the two characters who confront each other in the play and how they engage (and disengage). Those two characters are Mark Rothko (of course) and Ken, a young man who has recently been taken on as Rothko\u2019s assistant. Ken is also a recent graduate with a degree in Art, so he certainly knows something about art \u2013 though not as much as Rothko, a fact of which the renowned master keeps reminding Ken.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those verbal and emotional interactions between Ken and Rothko provide the main thrust in this rather talky play. Although Ken is himself an artist, one anxious to show his own work to Rothko, the latter treats him mostly like an errand boy and a sounding board. This steadily gnaws at Ken, until it finally hits one nerve too many, which then results in one of the key turning points in the play. At that point, Ken breaks out of his protective shell and starts pushing back at Rothko. These scenes produce the most powerful moments in the play, and they carry the emotional thrust of the piece to its poignant conclusion.

As the interaction between the two men intensifies and takes on a new impetus, this Rothko starts to see that he is becoming a victim of the same replacement theory he has preached to Ken, and he\u2019s unwilling to accept this status. But Ken spills the truth that willing to accept it or not, Rothko is caught in the techtonic changes happening in the art world.

As mentioned above, this is a rather talky play. But the dialogue, especially the rants of Rothko, is so rich, so delicious that this talkiness comes off as a virtue rather than a flaw.

With this script, John Logan has provided theatre companies with solid material for a first-rate production, but theatre companies need to provide the team to turn that written material into powerful theatre. Theatre Exile has done precisely that, with the astute direction of Matt Pfeiffer and two excellent performances in the two roles.

Scott Greer could easily win a Mark Rothko look-a-like contest \u2013 as long as he was the only one competing in that contest. But it\u2019s really of no importance that Greer bears almost no resemblance to that highly irascible artist. What\u2019s important is the quality of the performance, and Greer gives us a simply superb performance. The default setting of Rothko\u2019s personality in the play is blustery, cantankerous and bearing the many scars of mistreatment \u2013 mistreatment both real and imagined. Greer handles this part of the role wonderfully. But he\u2019s also able to capture the vulnerability and neediness Rothko tries to cover up. These last two qualities are clearly overshadowed by the bluster and his vehement lecturing of Ken, but Scott Greer\u2019s ability to allow those glimpses of vulnerability and neediness make this a compelling, well-rounded performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Ken, Zach Valdez proves a splendid sparring partner to Greer\u2019s Rothko. Certainly, Rothko has to be overbearing, but you then need a Ken who can take the abuse for a spell before coming back with jabs  of his own that land forcefully in those zones of Rothko\u2019s vulnerability. Almost three years ago, Valdez played a brawny gym rat ready to punch out another character (played coincidentally by Scott Greer) in Theatre Exile\u2019s The Motherf**ker With The Hat<\/em>. As Ken, a diametrically different character, Valdez shows that he\u2019s even more adept at delivering those painful verbal jabs. (Okay, he didn\u2019t actually make good on the perceived threat of violence in the previous show.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These two actors not only deliver their lines well, but their facial changes add a significant subtext to their relationship. Scott Greer\u2019s face is itself a gallery of gall and grievance in this production. But when his look softens, it changes the mood of the scene in an appealing way.

Zach Valdez\u2019s facial gestures show the stages of Ken\u2019s defiance convincingly. For much of the first two-thirds of the play, Valdez\u2019s face reveals the growing frustration at his treatment by the malignantly self-absorbed Rothko. Resentment peers out of his face as he undergoes another round of repeated intimidation by Greer\u2019s Rothko. We can see a dam of emotion about to burst just before it does, and Valdez then manages to serve up a splendidly nuanced rendition of Ken\u2019s eruption.

Director Matt Pfeiffer also deserves lauds here. The staging is pinpoint. At the points of highest drama, the actor\u2019s physical interaction is like a series of parries-and-thrusts as their egos collide. But then there\u2019s the bit where Rothko and Ken prime a canvas together, and their deftly coordinated movements are like those of two partners in a friendly dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colin McIlvane\u2019s set is workman-like, but not worth more than a nod of appreciation. McIlvane and his construction team (Philadelphia Scenic Works) establish that we find ourselves in Rothko\u2019s studio, but the design doesn\u2019t really rise to anything exceptional, anything that lets us experience an imaginative visual subtext to the play or the characters.

Maria Shaplin\u2019s light design is worthy of more praise, giving us a sense of that something more that theatre can provide. Especially effective in Shaplin\u2019s strategy is the way light filters through the single window as the play moves towards its conclusion. This is the first time we see the window produce this light, and it comes at just the moment when an important final turn in the play has arrived.

Sound designer Christopher Colluci\u2019s main task appears to be selection of fitting pieces from different periods of \u201clonghair\u201d music (with one short stream of Charlie Parker jazz.). Colucci fulfills that task nicely as the music serves to enhance the production without ever being too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red<\/em><\/strong> runs at Theatre Exile, 1340-48 S.13th<\/sup> Street, South Philly until November 17. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:00 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m.; Sunday at 3:00 p.m. There is one additional Saturday performance at 3:00 p.m. on November 16.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trivia Trail<\/strong>
Red<\/em> dominated the 2010 Tony Awards, walking away with the Best Play \u00a0and five other Tonys. Eddie Redmayne and Alfred Molina starred in the original London production in the High Fringe (the Donmar Warehouse, to be precise.) This production then transferred to Broadway, with the same cast and director. Redmayne\u2019s portrayal of Ken snared one of the production\u2019s six Tonys, as Best Featured Actor in a play. Alfred Molina was nominated for Best Actor, but he lost out to Denzel Washington, who played Troy Maxson in August Wilson\u2019s Fences<\/em>. (Denzel Washington\u2026 ? I think I\u2019ve heard of that fellow.)

One of Rothko\u2019s most famous paintings is Black on Grey<\/em>, which debuted in 1970, a decade after the events in this play and just before his death. When you see the play, you\u2019ll understand the significance of this date and this painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revelation Rothko makes to Ken that what he hopes his paintings will do to the rich clientele dining at the Four Seasons restaurant was actually made to John Fisher, a journalist and publisher of Harpers Magazine while the two were aboard an ocean liner trip to Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A decade after the Four Seasons squabbles seen in this play, Rothko donated a number of the Seagram Murals to London\u2019s Tate Museum, where they are today on exhibit at the Tate Modern. Ironically, the donated murals arrived at the Tate on the very day of Rothko\u2019s death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October 2012, Black on Maroon<\/em><\/a>, one of the paintings in the Seagram murals now displayed at the Tate Modern, was seriously marred by a vandal wielding a black ink marker. It was reported that the vandalism had done “significant damage\u201d to the work, and restoration of the painting took 18 months to complete. The perpetrator later said that he quite admired Rothko and was only trying to \u201cadd value\u201d to the painting as well as plugging his own art movement, which he calls Yellowism.<\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Richard Lord This is not science fiction: Logan\u2019s run has been astounding. I\u2019m referring, of course, to the career of John Logan. John Logan is a playwright and screenwriter who has been not only impressively prolific, but also extremely successful. As a screenwriter, he\u2019s scored big with Any Given Sunday, Sweeney Todd, Gladiator, The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":489,"href":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488\/revisions\/489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/performancefont.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}