#14. Red

Red by John Logan

Premiere: Donmar Warehouse, London 

(3 December 2009)

Published by Oberon Modern Plays

John Logan's Red has long hovered around the back of my mind since seeing a friend give a wonderful performance of a monologue taken from the play a few years ago. The play was first seen at the Donmar, in a production directed by Michael Grandage and starring Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne, which transferred to Broadway and won awards on both sides of the Atlantic. A brilliantly gripping two-hander, it is a study of Mark Rothko, one of the last century's greatest artists, and his young assistant, Ken. It covers swiftly the two year period of Ken's employ, as Rothko attempts to complete his landmark, abstract expressionist Seagram Mural paintings. 

"You insult these men by reducing them to your own adolescent stereotypes. Grapple with them, yes. Argue with them, always. But don't think you understand them. They are beyond you." Mark Rothko

Logan's achievement in this play is to make his character study resonate broadly, bringing something new and honestly profound unpretentiously into its grasp. Through Rothko, Logan discusses the very fabric of artistic integrity and authenticity in the face of a capitalist, consumerist, ravenous society intent on turning his 'pure' art into yet another product to be devoured without humanity. Not only does he make us care about Rothko, his struggle becomes that of all artist striving for something meaningful in the face of soulless, bloodthirsty jackals. 

Stephen Wright (Lee) and Diana
Agron (Dahlia) in McQueen

Many writers attempt to find this resonance in theatrical 'bio-dramas' of a similar ilk - the reductive McQueen, written by James Phillips and recently inexplicably successful at the St James and now transferring to the West End, comes to mind. They often fall into the trap of artist selfcongratulating artist, which feels like watching wholly unsatisfying theatrical masturbation, with artist appreciation as the hollow pornographic stimulation. The message becomes a painful, self-justifying mantra: 'this artist was important and proves that art is important and therefore this play is important'.

Red, though, avoids self-importance. Where many writers are transparent in their desperation to be profound while flailing in inadequacy when compared to the genius of the artist themself, Logan's script throbs with urgent humanity and respect for its central figure, but does not crown him a false God. Rothko's genius is appropriately understated. It is acknowledged as transient and fragile, rather than inevitable and divine. Red strips back, it humanises, it reveals, rather than piling yet more layers onto a falsified mythology. McQueen, on the other hand, seemed to me to feel the need to justify Alexander McQueen's genius, to fight his corner, even to justify his suicide, to push it at you over and over like one of those awful coin machines at seaside arcades where occasionally something worthless drops out the bottom as a crude reward for an inordinate effort. It is preaching the value of art to an audience made up of theatregoers and fashion enthusiasts. Surely this is completely redundant, especially considering that the V&A's outstanding exhibition on McQueen was running concurrently. If, for some unknown reason, anyone felt the need to find more evidence for McQueen's place as a respected, almost unparalleled master-craftsman, all they need do is look at his work itself. It speaks volumes. We don't need a play claiming to understand and dissect his creative torment, his process, his strokes of genius, and his depression, no matter how commendable the performances.

Alfred Molina (Mark Rothko)

Logan's play is far more respectable and, in my eyes, valid for acknowledging its limits. Rothko says to Ken on his judgement of several great artists from Matisse to Van Gogh: "You insult these men by reducing them to your own adolescent stereotypes. Grapple with them, yes. Argue with them, always. But don't think you understand them. Don't think you have captured them. They are beyond you. Spend a lifetime with them and you might get a moment of insight into their pain... Until then, allow them their grandeur in silence. Silence is so accurate." Logan here could as easily be writing about the central, irreconcilable contradiction of any biographical writing. Who is any writer, from biographer to playwright, lacking as they are in actual experience of the figure they take as their subject, to suggest they have truly captured them? It is surely more accurate to say that they have gone, and all we have now are ideas of them. We cannot fully understand them, just as it seems we cannot fully understand even ourselves. They are beyond us.

Eddie Redmayne (Ken)

Logan's play, though, for all its self-deprecation, does find moments of insight. That is where this play does Rothko's legacy justice. There are moments, imagined or not, where the howl of Rothko's dark rectangles echoes through the decades, reverberating in the dialogue and resonating through the silences. 

Much of the play comes in the form of a Socratic debate between master and pupil, with cultural references flung like canon fodder between the two men. There is a perplexing intensity to the bond between Rothko and Ken, despite all of the former's protestations to detached, maniacal self-centredness. Ken's subtly knowing laughs suggest the tolerance of a son towards a father. Of course, it will never avoid those detestable audience members gloating in their self-satisfaction, feeling highbrow because they get the actually somewhat middlebrow cultural in-jokes about Freud and Shakespeare, but this is the natural everyday patter of two men for whom a debate about the tension between the Appolonian and Dionysian instincts in Rothko's art is as easily digestible as a light salad. The teacher-pupil dynamic grows, and it emerges that it is a two-way exchange; they are both learning. Ken is a different generation, a new artist. Rothko is becoming part of the old guard, which by his own admission must be stamped on before the next generation may prosper. Without Rothko's experience and aggressive conviction, Ken would not have been challenged or forced to step up to a level he was no doubt always capable of reaching. Without Ken's youthful tolarotarianism and resilience, Rothko would not have found a way, however imperfect, to reconcile the contradiction between his puritanical ethos and his commercial success. 

Moving but unsentimental. Profound but unpretentious. Serious and yet sinisterly humorous. Urgent and intense but haunting and melancholy. Fiercely uncompromising but hewn with feeling. John Logan is a writer with true perceptive powers. Red is an admirable piece of art, pulsating with the prowess of a master-craftsman at work.

Alfred Molina (Mark Rothko) and Eddie Redmayne (Ken) in the 2009 Donmar Warehouse production

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