Mary ArcherTHEA 22131 March 2014

Play Critique: “Red”

The play “Red” written by John Logan and directed by Kathy Bowers at TAG The Actors

Group Theatre is a two person play set in the New York studio of a famous painter, Mark

Rothko, in 1958 and 1959. The players are the 55 year old balding, mustached, bespectacled man

and his new assistant hire, Ken. The younger man, played by James Denzer, at present a Castle

High School senior and soon a New York City performing arts college freshman, is nervous. He

has searching eyes as he gazes at the audience those few quiet moments in the dark space during

the interim before his first cue.

He sets on, and though Kevin Keaveney who plays the Russian Jewish Rothko demands

to be heard with his grand, blaring articulation, I train my eyes on Ken’s flickering face, winding

through confusion and alarm while trying hard to maintain composure during his first day on the

job. The short-statured Ken edges toward the table as towering, burly Rothko advances, stating,

“I’m not your friend, your teacher, or your father, I’m your employer. And, you will cater to my

necessities and to my whim.”

Ken is a recent art school graduate in awe of contemporaries of his time like Picasso and

Jackson Pollack. His desire is to be a painter, and he wants to learn the feeling of what it’s like to

be an artist from Rothko, who has success in the galleries Ken often visits. Ken, while

impressionable, is discerning, and he wishes to strain the principle from the heady of Rothko’s

frequent diatribes about artistic integrity and about meaning, about what’s important.

It is the heyday of abstract expressionism and Rothko has been contracted to paint a

mural series for the upcoming Four Seasons restaurant. The paintings are unified by layers of

varying hues of red and by minimalistic rectangles. Rothko refers to his work often, asking Ken

what he sees. Ken bites his lip and stares in a daze at the painting, uncertain of what is expected

of him. He keeps his voice steady and resonant as he answers, trying for humor, “red?” He waits

for correction, he is open to a lesson. Although Ken keeps his silence through Rothko’s sarcasm-

dipped paragraphs, his eyes roll often. While Rothko disparages his patrons (saying the rich buy

his work to match the color of their sofa) Ken cares for his employer dutifully, changing the

records on the turntable often and buying Chinese food.

Once, when the artist is chasing a glimpse of inspiration, Ken interrupts Rothko’s train of

thought with the remark, “it’s red.” Rothko is wrathful and he hurls an assault of red powder

satchels and a torrent of words that question Ken’s validity as an art student: “did you mean

scarlet, maroon, crimson?,” he challenges. Ken cowers behind the table, forearm protecting his

eyes. It’s not long before he stands and replaces the empty paint tins knocked down onto the

tabletop. He does so slowly, gathering breath. He affirms his merit in his reply, his voice colored

with angry pride, “I meant, red is sunset, sunset is red.” His response shows his strong

appreciation for art, that it communicates wordless wonder between man. Ken uses art to

communicate with Rothko, who had used art as a weapon a few moments before. Later, Ken says

he doesn’t believe Rothko would “cheapen” art for use as a weapon, but he would use art as a

tool for understanding.

Ken announces his dignity every time he tidies up the studio and staples canvas to

wooden frames with his usual deliberate rhythm. However, he loses rhythm as he fights to catch

up with Rothko who is priming a canvas red with gusto to classical operatic song. Ken’s voice is

weakened, closed, for the first time. Ken usually pretends he is fine, and he says his

discomposure is nothing. Rothko resents lies and prefers to ennoble “tragedy” as a symptom of

intellect. Ken is reluctant to share his tale of his parent’s murder and the color of their dried

blood on the carpet. Ken is like Rothko, like layers of red paint.

There is a build in Ken’s character towards his own vocal outburst. It is timed to the

increasingly impatient turns of his mouth and the flick of his eyes. He has learned to speak little

and with concentration, because though Rothko responds quickly, he hardly seeks to understand

what Ken has to offer.

However, Ken has long wanted to voice Rothko’s delusion that a critical thinker like he is

above the general public who want only to be entertained and who want only to be “fine.” Again,

Ken uses art to segue into the topic strategically. He says Rothko’s symbolic use of black as

death is “romantic” and stale. Rothko said, "There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend...

One day the black will swallow the red.” Rothko is egomaniacal, yet his hint that he will commit

suicide belies his own deep-seated unease about his place in the world. Rothko is severe on

others who “don’t think,” yet he lacks the courage to challenge his own beliefs and understand

his own self. When Ken finally says yes, he thinks Rothko “self-delusional,” he becomes his own

man. Rothko states this when he says, “Fire you? This is first time you exist. See you tomorrow.”

Ken’s character has been steadfast, at times irritated, but throughout, humane. However,

when Ken gains ground to speak his mind, he became in part antagonistic towards Rothko, and

seemed to bully instead of support, perhaps in bitterness that Rothko was indifferent to Ken’s

personal details and aspirations as a painter even after two years work. Ken was hostile, and I

was disappointed because at this point Ken should have been emotionally secure and the reaction

was below him. Ken exits and sets down the money tin petulantly, noisily for the first time. This

action shows Ken’s displeasure, but is still a step back for the character who had been

remarkably dignified in his duties before.

By play’s end we see contrast in the way Ken keeps his ground. He minimizes the space

between him and Rothko. His face is firm. He wants answers. Rothko fired Ken because he calls

Ken needy and, he reasons, he is “not Ken’s father.” Unlike Rothko, Ken has learned to question

empty talk, and he calls Rothko’s reason “bullshit.” The true reason is that Rothko wants Ken to

grow as an artist and in Rothko’s studio, his growth would be stunted. Ken understands. He

looks at Rothko’s painting now with surety and a slight smile, and leaves.

Since TAG Theatre has a small stage James Denzer had no trouble at all using all of it.

His articulation was always clear and his volume sufficient. I felt his voice could have been

quieter, shakier, in the beginning on his first day at Rothko’s studio, so later his vocal strength

would be more compelling. Therefore, for the first scenes, Denzer’s vocal variety was fairly flat.

In regards to open body position, however, Denzer went the whole range like the professional he

will soon become.

Ken wanted to hear his own opinion, and he got it. Ken’s character underscores the play’s

theme that truth is resiliency. Compassion, strength. Ken satisfies his hunger for knowledge of

what courage a painter must have to speak their truth and declare it proudly, fiercely, nobly. He

conquers his self-doubt through his increasing challenge to Rothko to make art with sincere

desire for rapport with his fellow man, instead of with the vanity and cruelty that had sealed him

off hermetically from the world. Ken’s posture while upright mostly gains potent grace by play’s

end, as his voice resounds with the strength of a man, not boy. His word flow soon rivals

Rothko’s as he speaks articulately and well. Although lacking still Rothko’s culture and reading,

Ken emotional authenticity makes his word huge and incomparably forcible.