Red by John Logan

• Born: September 24, 1961
• Birthplace: San Diego, California

First published: 2009

Type of work: Drama

Type of plot: Psychological

Time of plot: 1958–59

Locale: Mark Rothko’s studio, 222 Bowery, New York City

Principal Characters

Mark Rothko, a character modeled after the historical American abstract painter

Ken, his fictional assistant, a young American painter

The Story

The biographical play Red, mixing fact and fiction, focuses on the two years American abstract painter Mark Rothko worked on a series of murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in the newly built Seagram Building in New York City. In his fifties, Rothko is looking at one such painting of his. The painting is actually invisible, as it is meant to hang where the audience sits. As Rothko stares, smoking a cigarette, his new, twenty-something assistant, Ken, arrives.

Rothko challenges Ken to tell him what he sees in his gigantic abstract painting. He instructs him to look carefully and let the picture speak to him. Ken finally answers with one word: "red." Questioned again, he says he likes the picture. This is too little for Rothko. He asks Ken if he aspires to something, and the young man states he aspires to be a painter. Rothko tells him his duties, ranging from preparing the canvas to applying the first layer of paint to cleaning, to which Ken agrees. When Rothko asks Ken about his favorite painter, Ken mentions the late American abstract painter Jackson Pollock. Rothko is hurt. To recover his pride, Rothko tells Ken about his commission. He will get thirty-five thousand dollars, a considerable sum in the 1950s, for his series of abstract murals to decorate the restaurant. Rothko wants his paintings to turn the place into a temple, but Ken remains skeptical.

In the next scene, Ken brings Rothko Chinese takeaway food. Rothko talks about art with Ken, and he looks at the unfinished painting where the audience sits and asks aloud what it needs. When Ken says "red," Rothko explodes and belittles Ken for daring to give advice. The two reflect on what red symbolizes to them.

In the third scene, Ken is on the telephone with someone, whom he tells that he will try to have Rothko look at a painting of his own he brought wrapped up into Rothko’s studio. Rothko appears and tells Ken he has looked at the Seagram Building being built. Ken cautiously expresses his doubts that the restaurant is right for Rothko’s paintings. Rothko brushes these concerns aside.

The two men talk about the conflict between Rothko’s art and that of the late Pollock in light of Friedrich Nietzsche’s book The Birth of Tragedy. They agree that Pollock expresses the wild spirit called "Dionysian" by Nietzsche. Rothko stands for the intellectual approach of Apollo as Nietzsche defined it. Rothko states that his artistic goal is to balance passion and intellect in his paintings to keep tragedy at bay, at least for a while. Rothko believes Pollock’s fatal car accident was the suicide of a burnt-out artist. Rothko hates the idea of his pictures becoming ornaments or commodities.

The two men work side by side, preparing one huge new canvas. Rothko learns that for his assistant, the color white symbolizes death because his parents were murdered in winter by a couple of burglars who were never found. Rothko is surprised. Upon questioning, Ken tells how he and his sister discovered their murdered parents in their bedroom in Iowa when he was seven. Rothko recounts how he, at age ten, and his Jewish parents fled the Cossacks in imperial Russia and immigrated to the United States. There, he changed his name from Marcus Rothkowitz to Mark Rothko in order not to sound Jewish. He and Ken quarrel about Rothko’s association of black with death, which Ken finds too trivial. Ken never shows his painting.

Scene 4 opens with an upset Rothko rushing into his studio. He has just seen an exhibition of young American pop-art painters such as Jasper Jones, Roy Liechtenstein, and Andy Warhol. In a state of near-hysteria, he denounces their work as "garbage" and "superficial, meaningless sewage." Ken defends the next-generation painters. He angrily reminds Rothko how he and his generation deviated from the art of older painters such as Pablo Picasso, a point Rothko had boasted of earlier, and lashes out at his hypocrisy for painting murals for a restaurant.

Ken then claims that Rothko has not taken the least personal interest in him, never asking to see his paintings, in the two years Ken has been working for Rothko. Rothko is defiant, stating that Ken is just his employee and attacking him for his neediness. Ken attacks Rothko for his pretentions and perfectionism. Rothko defends himself. He tells Ken of his trip to Europe, where he saw Michelangelo’s Medici Library in Florence, Italy. He wants his restaurant murals to convey the same sense of claustrophobia and unease Michelangelo’s staircase there created for him. He defends himself against Ken’s charges of being a sell-out. Rothko insists his paintings will change the audience, transcend the function of the restaurant, and create their own uneasy atmosphere. Ken voices his disbelief and then is surprised that Rothko does not fire him for sharing his viewpoint.

In scene 5, Ken discovers Rothko lying on the floor looking at the picture where the audience sits. Rothko’s hands are covered in red paint, not blood, as Ken initially fears. Rothko states that after their discussion of the previous day, he went to eat at the Four Seasons restaurant. He tells of his horror about the expensive pretentiousness of the place. Worst for him were the conversations of the rich, upscale diners. He calls them monkeys and jackals. He worries what his paintings will have to endure there.

After a pause, Rothko picks up the telephone. He calls the coarchitect of the Seagram Building, Philip Johnson, who commissioned him. As in real life, the fictional Rothko tells Johnson that he will send back his advance and keep his paintings, breaking the contract.

Next, Rothko turns to Ken and fires him because the young man needs to become an artist in his own right. Rothko repeats his initial question, asking Ken what he sees in his central painting. Ken replies "red" again. He departs, leaving Rothko alone.

Bibliography

Brantley, Ben. "Primary Colors and Abstract Appetites." Rev. of Red, by John Logan. New York Times. New York Times, 2 Apr. 2010. Web. 4 June 2014.

Hetrick, Adam, and Kenneth Jones. "Red, with Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, Splashes onto Broadway." Rev. of Red, by John Logan. Playbill.com. Playbill, 1 Apr. 2010. Web. 4 June 2014.

Mohr, Betty. "‘Red’ is a larger-than-life portrait of Rothko." Rev. of Red, by John Logan. SouthTownStar. Chicago Tribune, 23 Jan. 2012. Web. 4 June 2014.

Probst, Andy. "Review Roundup: Red, with Alfred Molina, at Donmar Warehouse." Rev. of Red, by John Logan. Theatermania. Theatermania.com, 10 Dec. 2009. Web. 4 June 2014.