“What do you see?” demands Edward Gero, the actor playing the painter Mark Rothko in the Arena Stage/Goodman Theatre co-production of John Logan’s “Red” at Arena Stage. It’s a great first line for a play that is all about seeing. Superficially, the play is about seeing in the most basic ways: looking at a canvas, discerning colors, understanding the relationship of vertical and horizontal spaces. Yet as Logan’s script unfolds, it begins to explore other more metaphorical kinds of perception. Rothko was a philosophical artist, who wrote at great length about the effect he wanted his work to have and the way he wanted the world to understand his paintings.
But while Rothko had a superior mind, he was a difficult man. Thus Logan’s Rothko is erratic, moody, emotionally inaccessible. Directed by Robert Falls, Gero’s portrayal of Rothko is soulful and deeply felt. In a stunning display of emotions ranging from doubt to absolute certainty, Gero paints an utterly credible picture of the complicated, volatile Rothko.
| Onstage |
| ‘Red’ |
| Where: Arena Stage, 1101 Sixth St. SW |
| When: Through March 4 |
| Info: $40 to $85; 202-488-3300; arenastage.org |
The impossible side of Rothko comes into play when Rothko interacts with his new assistant, Ken (Patrick Andrews). At the beginning of the play, Ken knows virtually nothing about Rothko’s art. By the end of the play, Ken is transformed into an antagonist to Rothko, challenging him to take seriously the new movements of the art world, specifically Pop Art, which Rothko despised. Andrews is impressive in this role that requires him to play two such different sides of his character.
It is during his confrontations with Ken that Rothko becomes most fully realized. “Red” is set in New York City in 1958 and 1959, the period when Rothko was creating his murals for the Seagram Building’s Four Seasons restaurant. It is Ken who challenges Rothko to remember that his murals will be hanging in a restaurant, not a chapel dedicated to art, forcing Rothko to decide whether to keep or turn down the commission.
Throughout “Red,” Rothko talks about his paintings as though they can communicate with the viewer. And Keith Parham’s lighting design makes that happen, bathing a few pseudo-Rothko paintings in gentle light, creating the luminosity that so many art critics talk about when they discuss Rothko’s works. The final image in “Red” is of Rothko standing in front of a red painting that clearly seems to pulsate and glow.
