In Red’s opening scene Mark Rothko (Colin Friels) stares out from the stage. He’s looking at one of his paintings, weighing it up, sizing its integrity and gauging its impact. This wordless contemplation is a pivotal moment, for there’s a hint of the stereotypical portrayal of the artist. Yet, impressively Alkino Tsilimidos’ stylish, informed and canny direction steers clear of sentimentalising clichéd and reverent pap.
For a start, the drama doesn’t hinge around Rothko’s struggle for recognition. Instead, it’s a study of a successful Rothko engaged in creating large-scale paintings to hang in the upstairs dining area of New York’s Four Seasons Restaurant. Rothko has secured a fee of $35,000 for this commission, a big deal in 1958, since the sum is the equivalent of a million today. Rothko assuages his conscience and any trace of doubt he harbours about ‘selling out’ by believing he can create works to ‘ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room’.
Twenty five-year old Tom Barton is insightful, alert and persuasive as Ken, Rothko’s earnest new assistant. Ken is the archetypal, youthful enthusiast, at once intimidated yet enthralled and crushed by his hectoring employer. For the purposes of the dramatic arc, the young man is a bridge to the outside world, a barometer of the art world’s shifting preoccupations.
All of the action occurs in Rothko’s paint-splattered, dimly lit studio and the props and memorabilia are well chosen to reflect the times. It could so easily become claustrophobic but isn’t because the mercurial ambience and progression through each day are skilfully conjured by Matt Scott’s pertinent lighting and Tristan Meredith’s Foley effects and astute sound design.
Around his pontificating, irascible boss, Ken treads warily. The responses he gives to Rothko’s questions are pounced upon by the older man and ripped into shreds. Rothko’s narcissistic rants make Ken a whipping post for the painter’s contemptuous view of the art world and its ignorant consumers. The latter buy his works as an ‘investment’ or even worse, a decorative object of interior design, to his disgust.
The soundtrack amplifies Rothko’s moody reflections and adds irony. An old record player references Schubert’s ‘Death and The Maiden’ String Quartet. Extracts from Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ highlight the fraught tensions between the younger man and the patriarchal, domineering painter. As Ken grows in confidence this is reflected in his musical choices. He likes trumpeter Chet Baker, much to Rothko’s disapproval. For jazz is synonymous with the excesses of the cultural new guard as exemplified by Andy Warhol and the rise of Pop Art.
John Logan’s script snarls, hisses and fumes and the frisson between these two men preparing a canvas has an admirable intensity. And, the edge between them darkens and peaks into a powerful climax when Ken turns the tables on Rothko and serves up his own brand of stinging invective.
What happens after this is to give too much away but Red is intelligent and engaging theatre with compelling dialogue. Friels is brilliant, a seasoned virtuoso attentive to varying the pace, nuance and emphasis to hold attention. Spare though it is in setting and design, Red nevertheless interrogates a fascinating moment in art history and must be one of the best QTC productions Brisbane audiences have encountered in recent years.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Queensland Theatre Company presents a Melbourne Theatre Company production
Red
Written by John Logan
Director: Alkinos Tsilimidos
Set Designer: Shaun Gurton
Costume Designer: Jill Johanson
Lighting Designer: Matt Scott
Composer: Tristan Meredith
Cast includes: Colin Friels and Tom Barton
The Playhouse, QPAC
27 April – 19 May
