December 6, 2012
The SuburbanDecember 5, 2012
By James Gartler
Read the article
Mark Rothko was an American abstract expressionist painter with a true artist's temperament. When commissioned in 1958 to create a series of paintings for the Seagram building's Four Seasons restaurant in New York City, he found himself unable to enjoy the high-profile gig, instead feeling deeply conflicted over the purpose of his work and the business of art in general.
In Red, the six-time Tony Award-winning play currently running at the Segal Centre, we are invited into his studio and challenged to see colour and creativity through new eyes. For Rothko (Randy Hughson), life boils down to the conflict between red and black. His young assistant Ken (Jesse Aaron Dwyre), however, can't help but feel that's an oversimplification, not that he's in much of a position to question the master. Over the course of their long days together in the studio, he's repeatedly ordered to mix paints, stretch canvases and keep his opinions to himself.
Rothko is a tormented genius able to create paintings that “move through space if you let them,” but lacking in basic interpersonal skills and painfully indifferent towards his protégé. When Ken gets wise and begins asserting himself, it results in a series of explosive debates between sorcerer and apprentice as they struggle to find common ground and complete their task.
It makes for 90 minutes of gripping theatre. Hughson and Dwyre, through the direction of Martha Henry, strike an emotional balance between world-weary arrogance and measured exuberance. Rothko compares revealing his work to the outside world with “sending a blind child into a room full of razor blades.” Ken, meanwhile, patiently waits for an opportunity simply to show him one of his paintings and get some feedback. Only when they join together to passionately attack a canvas with their brushes do their differences fall by the wayside in one of the production's best moments.
Eo Sharp's set design draws you right into their world, with the studio extending well beyond the boundaries of the Segal stage and out into the audience. One rather playful moment even threatens to bring observers a little too close to the creative process, but then, even a show as intense as Red must have its moments of levity. As Rothko describes his experience walking into the ritzy Four Seasons and observing the clientele, you'll be hard-pressed not to agree with his withering assessment. And Dwyre, resembling a young Jeff Hyslop as he jovially bounces around to the sound of a jazz record, is sure to elicit a smile or two.
Most importantly, Red offers up some serious food for thought. Can any artist be satisfied with financial success if it means catering to an audience? Are audiences even still interested in seeing art, and truly allowing it to speak to them?
That much, at least, is entirely up to you.
Red runs until Dec. 16. For more information, visit www.segalcentre.org