PHOTO CREDIT: Jean-Gabriel Fernandez
John Logan’s Red won the Tony Award for Best Play, and it is easy to understand why when seeing Windfall Theatre’s rendition of it. Two actors and a minimalist set are all the play needs, as it relies entirely on dialogue to express itself. It is introspective, thoughtful, provocative and passionate; if you love art, you will find something to love in this script.
Red retells the (true, to an extent) story of Mark Rothko, the famous expressionist painter, working his first commission: murals for New York City’s legendary Four Seasons restaurant. The works, now known as the Seagram Murals, never ended up in the restaurant; Red offers insight as to why.
What is art? What makes an artist? Should art be beautiful, consumed, bought, appreciated, popular, hated, heart-gripping, pleasant…? Those are all the questions the play mulls over. It does not offer answers, of course, but the hour-and-a-half show is a free dive into the mind of an artist, where colors and thoughts swirl incessantly, where history, philosophy, literature and a lifetime of knowledge blend together to create something that speaks to people.
The play does offer one answer, explaining why Rothko refused to hang his work in the Four Seasons restaurant. It is in fact a quote from the artist himself: “I hope to ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room,” he said, “with paintings that will make those rich bastards feel that they are trapped in a room where all the doors and windows are bricked up.”
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Two actors make up the whole cast: Bo Johnson, veteran of the Milwaukee theater community and companies like The Rep, plays Rothko with strength and conviction; Mohammad N. ElBsat, as his assistant Ken, is convincing as an eager art fanatic who learns to know the man behind the art. Both are efficient and disappear behind their characters, letting the script seep through them and delivering it well.
After watching the play, audiences might like to hear that, while Rothko’s art is as lively as ever, the Four Seasons restaurant closed its doors earlier this year; history did give the artist the last laugh.
Through Saturday, Oct. 12, at Village Church Arts, 130 E. Juneau Ave.
