For John Logan’s Red, the look must be perfect

  • Print
  • More

November 27, 2012

The Gazette
November 23, 2012
By Pat Donnelly


Read the article

MONTREAL — When it comes to directing, actor/director Martha Henry believes that casting is of first importance.

She should know, having worked for five decades in her métier, after becoming the first graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada back in 1962.

As usual, with her production of John Logan’s Red, which begins previewing at the Segal Centre on Sunday, Henry has chosen the best available, including her lighting designer Robert Thomson, who recently won the 2012 (and final) Siminovitch Award.

Not that she has neglected the lead role of American artist Mark Rothko, to be played by noted Toronto actor Randy Hughson, nor the supporting role of his assistant, Ken (Jesse Aaron Dwyre). But when you’re dealing with a play about a renowned visual artist, it’s important to get the “look” right. The Red set and costumes have been designed by the talented Eo Sharp. And the show’s composer, Keith Thomas, has an impressive resumé that includes 17 seasons at the Stratford Festival — where Henry continues to run the Birmingham Conservatory.

She will also be directing Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure at the festival next season.

Henry discovered Red during a trip to New York when she saw the Tony-winning Broadway production. The play is about Rothko’s inner struggles with integrity when he’s offered a large commission to paint murals for an exclusive restaurant.

“I saw it with Alfred Molina and Eddy Redmayne in it,” she recalled, sipping her lunchtime soup as we talked in a cozily furnished alcove backstage at the Segal Centre. “I went because I was there with a woman who used to be my history teacher in high school. She wanted to go. It wouldn’t have been something that I would have picked. But I loved it.”

Once she read the play, her first thought was: “One day I thought I want to do this with Randy Hughson.” Next, she thought of Dwyre, whom she knew from the Conservatory.

Then she approached Paul Flicker, artistic producer of the Segal Centre. “I said to Paul,” she continued, “do you think we could do this? It’s about Mark Rothko. It has a Seagram connection.”

Say, what? “Those murals he was painting, they were for the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building (in New York),” she explained. “And Phyllis Lambert was the first person to suggest Mark Rothko (for the job).”

Keeping in mind that Lambert’s maiden name was Bronfman, and that the Segal Centre, formerly known as the Saidye Bronfman Centre, was designed by Lambert and named after her mother. A distinct narrative thread can be detected here.

“The Seagram Building was built by Philip Johnson and (Ludwig) Mies van der Rohe,” Henry continued. “Johnson was supposed to be his assistant. And then gradually it turned into both of them. Finally, it was Johnson that Rothko was dealing with. And it was Johnson and Phyllis that chose Rothko.”

“He painted about 40 paintings,” she said. “There wouldn’t have been room for 40 in the restaurant.” But he was creating — he talks about it in the play: ‘I will create a temple. I swear these paintings will live and thrive.’ ”

His assistant, however, brings him down to earth, reminding him that it’s just a restaurant, not a temple.

Henry said she hadn’t seen Rothko’s paintings until she visited an exhibition of abstract expressionists in Toronto last year. She was particularly taken with one self-portrait. “He looks like someone who needs help,” she observed.

And in fact, he did. Rothko committed suicide in 1970, at the age of 66.

But while he lived, he lived large. And his overblown personality remains a large part of the attraction to this play, she said.

Thomson, the lighting designer, said he can relate to Rothko’s mania for lighting.

“He was notorious for trying to control everything,” Thomson said.

“One of the things he controlled was the light. He had very sort of theatrical stands with lights on them and he lit his paintings with them.”

Similar devices are used in this production, he explained, although they are never the principal sources of light in a scene.

This is the first time Thomson has worked with Martha Henry as a director, although he has focused lights upon her several times on the Stratford stage.

For a man who has just won $100,000 (the last Siminovitch award), Thomson is remarkably unassuming. The best part of winning, he said, was playing Santa Claus to his two protégés, Jason Hand and Raha Javanfar, whom he chose to share $25,000 of the prize.

Javenfar is working as his assistant on Red.

Lighting Red wasn’t any more stressful than any other show, he said.

“Every show, you start from scratch and try to forget about everything else you’ve done. You look at it from the script up. I’m a big fan of the rehearsal hall and spend as much time as I possibly can there.”

Thomson, a native of Burlington, Ont., relocated to Montreal 18 months ago.

He actually started out studying agriculture, he said, for reasons that escape him now. But once he got a taste of the theatre, that was it. He studied at the Studio and Forum of Stage Design in New York City, then returned to Canada where he has put in 12 seasons at the Stratford Festival, 25 at the Shaw Festival and 12 at the National Ballet. One of his high-profile projects was Robert Lepage’s Bluebeard’s Castle/Erwartung. But he has many other opera credits. He has worked at the Segal Centre several times (Inherit the Wind, Buried Child), and at Centaur Theatre.

“I try to not have a style,” he said. “I try to reinvent myself. But I’m sure I have a trend that people may recognize. I hope not. I try not to be that way.”

Red, by John Logan, begins previews Sunday and opens Thursday at the Segal Centre, 5170 Côte Ste. Catherine Rd. Call 514-739-7944 or visit www.segalcentre.org.

Box Office
514-739-7944