Download Play Guide - Arizona Theatre Company

Red
Play Guide
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
1
Red
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENTS
3
4
4
5
5
8
8
9
13
14
WHO WE ARE
INTRODUCTION TO THE PLAY
CHARACTERS
SYNOPSIS
MARK ROTHKO
WHAT MAKES ROTHKO'S WORK
SO IMPORTANT
IN HIS OWN WORDS
A CONVERSATION WITH
JOHN LOGAN
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
ROTHKO AND THE FOUR SEASONS
15 ROTHKO’S V.I.P.S
19 WHAT LEADS TO WHAT? – ISMS AND WHERE
THEY COME FROM AND GO
23 THEMES IN THE PLAY
24 APOLLO VS. DIONYSUS
25 GLOSSARY
28 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
It is Arizona Theatre Company’s goal to share the enriching experience of live theatre. This play guide is
intended to help you prepare for your visit to Arizona Theatre Company. Should you have comments or
suggestions regarding the play guide, or if you need more information about scheduling trips to see an
ATC production, please feel free to contact us:
Tucson: April Jackson
Associate Education Manager
(520) 884-8210 ext 8506
(520) 628-9129 fax
Phoenix: Cale Epps
Education Manager
(602) 256-6899 ext 6503
(602) 256-7399 fax
Red Play Guide compiled and written by Jennifer Bazzell, Literary Manager Katherine Monberg, Artistic
Intern, and Allison Hrabar, ATC Intern. Discussion questions and activities prepared by Cale Epps,
Education Manager April Jackson, Associate Education Manager and Amber Tibbitts, Education
Associate. Layout by Gabriel Armijo.
SPONSORS
Support for ATC’s Education and Community Programming has been provided by:
Freeport-McMoran
Copper & Gold Foundation
JPMorgan Chase
John and Helen Murphy Foundation
National Endowment for the Arts
Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture
PICOR Charitable Foundation
Rosemont Copper
Stonewall Foundation
Target
The Boeing Company
The Donald Pitt Family Foundation
The Johnson Family Foundation, Inc.
The Lovell Foundation
Organizations
APS
Arizona Commission on the Arts
Bank of America Foundation
Blue Cross Blue Shield Arizona
Boeing
City Of Glendale
Community Foundation for
Southern Arizona
Cox Charities
Downtown Tucson Partnership
Enterprise Holdings Foundation
Ford Motor Company Fund
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
The Marshall Foundation
The Maurice and Meta Gross
Foundation
The Max and Victoria Dreyfus
Foundation
The Stocker Foundation
The William L. and Ruth T. Pendleton
Memorial Fund
Tucson Medical Center
Tucson Pima Arts Council
Wells Fargo
2
Red
ARIZONA THEATRE COMPANY: WHO WE ARE
Thousands of people make our work at ATC possible!
WHO WE ARE
Arizona Theatre Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre company.
This means all of our artists, administrators and production staff are paid
professionals, and the income we receive from ticket sales and contributions
goes right back into our budget to create our work, rather than to any particular
person as a profit.
Each season, ATC employs hundreds of actors,
directors and designers from all over the country
to create the work you see on stage. In addition,
ATC currently employs about 100 staff members
in our production shops and administrative offices
in Tucson and Phoenix during our season. Among
these people are carpenters, painters, marketing
professionals, fundraisers, stage directors, computer
specialists, sound and light board operators, tailors,
costume designers, box office agents, stage crew
-the list is endless- representing an amazing range
of talents and skills.
Herberger Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona
We are also supported by a Board of Trustees, a
group of business and community leaders who
volunteer their time and expertise to assist the
theatre in financial and legal matters, advise in
marketing and fundraising, and help represent
the theatre in our community.
Roughly 150,000 people attend our
shows every year, and several thousands
of those people support us with charitable
contributions in addition to purchasing
their tickets. Businesses large and small,
private foundations and the city and
state governments also support our
work financially.
All of this is in support of our mission: to
create professional theatre that continually
Temple of Music and Art in Tucson, Arizona
strives to reach new levels of artistic
excellence and that resonates locally, in the state of Arizona and throughout the
nation. In order to fulfill its mission, the theatre produces a broad repertoire ranging
from classics to new works, engages artists of the highest caliber, and is committed to
assuring access to the broadest spectrum of citizens.
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
3
Red
Red
By John Logan
INTRODUCTION TO THE PLAY
INTRO
Master Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko, one of
the most visionary artists of the 20th century, has
landed the commission of a lifetime, a series of
murals for New York’s The Four Seasons Restaurant.
As he wrestles with the overwhelming task of
creating multiple paintings on a grand scale, his
new young assistant questions his views of art,
creativity and commerce. What follows is a raw and
provocative dialogue between master and novice,
old guard and new guard exploring the question,
“Is art meant to provoke, soothe or disturb?” Based
on true events, Red is a searing portrait of an artist’s
ambition and vulnerability as he tries to create a
definitive work for an extraordinary setting. Red is
the winner of six 2010 Tony Awards including Best
Play, the most honored play of the Broadway season.
Actors Connor Toms and Denis Arndt in Red. Photo
by Chris Bennion.
CHARACTERS
Actor Denis Arndt who plays Rothko in
ATC’s production.
Actor Connor Toms who plays Ken
in Red. Photo by Chris Bennion.
Mark Rothko: A famous artist, working on perhaps the most important commission of his career.
Ken: Rothko’s new assistant, an aspiring artist himself.
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
4
Red
SYNOPSIS
SYNOPSIS
It’s the late 1950s and Mark Rothko, famous Abstract Expressionist painter, has received
a commission to create paintings for a brand new restaurant, The Four Seasons. He has
also hired a brand new assistant, a young artist named Ken. As the two men get to know
each other through conversations about art, they discuss life and death and everything
in between. The dynamic between master and apprentice morphs and shifts as lessons
are learned, a relationship is forged and questions are asked, ignored or answered. Set
slightly more than ten years before Rothko’s eventual suicide, Red examines not only the
nature of art and its influence on the world, but, perhaps more profoundly, the life of a
man plagued by doubt but also gifted with genius.
MARK ROTHKO
Mark Rothko, pioneer of Abstract Expressionism, was
born Marcus Rothkowitz in Dvinsk, Russia – in what is
now Latvia – on September 25, 1903. He emigrated
from Russia to the U.S. with his family in 1913 to join
his father and older brothers where they had settled
in Portland, Oregon, three years earlier. Mark did not
have an idyllic childhood; his father passed away soon
after Mark’s arrival in the U.S. and Mark was forced
to learn English to work and support the family at a
very young age. He was highly involved in political
and social issues in his youth, and he graduated early
from Lincoln High School to enroll at Yale University
in 1921, with the intention of becoming a labor
Map showing the location of present-day Latvia.
leader. After two years at Yale, he withdrew from the
university and made his way to New York to become a painter, working at odd jobs to support
himself while attending Max Weber’s drawing classes at the Arts Student League, which
constituted his only formal artistic training. In 1928, his paintings were chosen to be a part of
a group show at the Opportunity Gallery with Lou Harris and Milton Avery – a huge break for
a young painter with little formal artistic education.
Arizona Theatre Company
By the mid 1930s, Rothko became very involved with the leftist
Artists’ Union, where he and several other artists advocated for the
creation of a municipal gallery, which was eventually granted. He
met many artists in his work with the Easel Division of the Works
Progress Administration under the New Deal, but he maintained
a true sense of closeness with a specific group of painters, most of
whom were Russian Jewish artists: Joseph Solman, Adolph Gottlieb,
and John Graham among them. Collectively this group became
known as “The Ten,” after showing their work together at Gallery
Succession in 1934.
Play Guide
5
Red
Rothko's Ever-Changing Artistic
Style
ROTHKO
Rothko’s work underwent dramatic stylistic developments in style throughout
the course of his career, which he stated was motivated by an ever-developing
clarity of content. His first works were produced in a realistic style influenced by
Expressionism that resulted in his Subway series in the late 1930s, which highlighted
the loneliness of existence in bleak, urban environments. This Expressionism began
to incorporate more surrealistic elements in the 1940s to create the semi-Abstract
forms of his Baptismal Scene (1945), before he found a highly personalized style
of Abstract Expressionism by the late 1940s. In 1939, he took a brief hiatus from
painting altogether to study philosophy and mythology, becoming fascinated
with Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy and internal expression rather than realistic
representation. The impact of this experience led to his best-known paintings, often
called “multi-forms,” in which figures do not appear at all and which achieve their
impact by juxtaposing large areas of melting colors that seem to float parallel to the
plane of the canvas in an atmospheric, undefined space. This style was quite distinct
from his fellow Abstract Expressionists whose effects were largely determined by
dramatic brushstrokes or the dripping or splattering of paint. Rothko claimed that
his multi-forms most accurately fulfilled his need to create universal symbols of
human yearning, and produce powerful statements about the condition of man.
Rothko forever continued to develop this style by further and further simplifying
it, restricting his works to a small number of “soft-edged” rectangles that consume
immense amounts of space on his large canvases, whose surprisingly intimate impact
is derived from the nuances of localized colors.
Rothko’s entire personal life was haunted by his constant battle
with depression, which many consider to be an undiagnosed
case of bipolar disorder. He married jewelry designer Edith
Sachar in 1932, followed by a divorce in 1945 after which he
married Mary Alice Beistel, with whom he had two children.
He won several acknowledgements throughout his career, but
acclaim never seemed to bring him happiness. He became
known as an abrasive and unpleasant personality, even refusing
an award from the Guggenheim Fellowship on the basis that art
should not be competitive. Rothko often stood up for his beliefs,
which cost him dearly in financial terms and in commissions
he refused to finish when he could not reconcile his social
and political beliefs with the missions of the people and
organizations who had funded his work.
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
Actor Denis Arndt as Rothko.
Photo by Chris Bennion.
6
Red
ROTHKO
In 1964, Rothko received a large commission from John
and Dominique de Menil to create massive wall murals
for a nondenominational chapel in Houston, Texas on the
campus of St. Thomas Catholic University. He created a
total of 14 canvases for the chapel, which was renamed
the Rothko Chapel after his death and has since been a
meeting place for many of the great religious leaders of
the world.
In 1968, Rothko spent nearly three weeks in the hospital
recovering from an aortic aneurysm that left him bitterly
contemplative of his own death. He became resentful that
his works were not being properly appreciated, and that he
was leaving behind a hollow legacy. These feelings spurred
him to create his final collection of 25 canvases, Blacks and
Grays, which demonstrate a clear shift in his mental state.
The combination of ill health and depression brought on by
the conviction that he would be quickly forgotten led him
to commit suicide at the age of 66 by ingesting an overdose
of anti-depressants and slitting his arms and wrists. He was
discovered by his assistant on the morning of February 25,
1970, resting on the bathroom floor of his studio, steeped
Rothko’s grave in East Marion, NY
in his own blood: a tragic end to one of the most influential
artists of the 20th century.
The Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas.
After his death, the distribution of his property remains one of the most infamous court
cases in the history of modern art, taking eleven years to resolve. Throughout his life
Rothko hoarded his works which, at his death, numbered 798 paintings and numerous
other sketches and drawings. Rothko’s daughter, Kate, accused the executors of the will of
conspiracy and conflict of interest in selling her father’s works, and won the battle in court.
In 1979, a new board was chosen to head the Mark Rothko Foundation and the works
were eventually divided between the Foundation and Rothko’s two children. In 1984, the
works distributed to the Mark Rothko Foundation were divided up among 19 museums in
Great Britain, the U.S., the Netherlands, Denmark, and Israel, with the largest portion of
them assigned to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
-written by Katherine Monberg, Artistic Intern
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
7
Red
ROTHKO
WHAT MAKES ROTHKO’S WORK
SO IMPORTANT?
Rothko's mature style – large paintings of saturated color –
emerged in the 1950s. They were painstakingly created by a
complex process of soaking and staining the canvas with thin
layers of paint. He worked on a large scale because he wanted
his paintings to function as physical beings, "so when you
turn your back to the painting," he said, "you would feel that
presence the way you feel the sun on your back."
Defending the art of his time, Rothko fought the notion that
subject matter was absent in abstract art. His own themes
were "basic human emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom." So
Rothko painted each work with a subject in mind, although
like all abstract expressionists he abhorred the idea of
explanation. Instead, Rothko believed the paintings constitute
an intimate dialogue between the artist and the audience, and
understanding comes from serious contemplation by the viewer.
Rothko never intended us to see one single painting of his in a
museum. He didn't allow his works to be displayed in galleries
or public spaces without control over the presentation, and he
arranged his works in groups meant to evoke a contemplative
mood. At the same time, he wanted his works to eventually
hang in private homes, where a single painting would be the
focus of a room.
In the Tower: Mark Rothko, an
exhibit featuring Rothko's 1964
black-on-black paintings from
Rothko Chapel. The exhibit is inside
the National Gallery of Art's East
Building, Tower Gallery, (main tower,
pictured) in Washington, D.C.
-by Lauren Rabb, Curator of Art, University of Arizona Museum of Art
IN HIS OWN WORDS
Rothko had much to say throughout his lifetime. Below are some of his words regarding
the meaning of life, art and value.
• “It is a widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints
as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academicism.”
• “Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit, and the only means of making concrete the
purpose of its varied quickness and stillness.”
• “We assert that the subject is crucial and only that subject matter is valid which is
tragic and timeless.”
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
8
Red
• “Silence is so accurate.”
OWN WORDS
• “The myth holds us, therefore, not through its romantic flavor, not the remembrance
of beauty of some bygone age, not through the possibilities of fantasy, but because it
expresses to us something real and existing in ourselves, as it was to those who first
stumbled upon the symbols to give them life.”
• “Small pictures since the Renaissance are like novels; large pictures are like dramas in
which one participates in a direct way.”
• “And last, it may be worthwhile trying to hang something beyond the partial wall
because some of the pictures do very well in a confined space.”
• “I also hang the pictures low rather than high, and particularly in the case of the largest
ones, often as close to the floor as is feasible, for that is the way they are painted.”
• “If our titles recall the known myths of antiquity, we have used them again because
they are the eternal symbols upon which we must fall back to express basic
psychological ideas.”
• “That is why we profess a spiritual kinship with primitive and archaic art.”
• “There is no such thing as good painting about nothing.”
• “This would be a distortion of their meaning, since the pictures are intimate and
intense, and are the opposite of what is decorative; and have been painted in a scale of
normal living rather than an institutional scale.”
A CONVERSATION WITH
PLAYWRIGHT JOHN LOGAN
(Reprinted with permission from The Goodman Theatre)
Red playwright John Logan graduated from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois,
in 1983 before making his mark as a writer in the burgeoning 1980s Chicago theater scene.
Longtime Chicago theater fans will recall such titles as Never the Sinner, Hauptmann and
the Robert Falls-directed Riverview at the Goodman. But even those who don’t remember
Mr. Logan’s early plays have likely encountered his work—for more than a decade he has
written screenplays for some of Hollywood’s most successful films, including Gladiator, The
Aviator, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and the recent film version of
Coriolanus. A few weeks before rehearsals for Red began at the Goodman Theatre for their
production, Mr. Logan spoke with the Goodman’s Neena Arndt about his writing process,
his fascination with Mark Rothko and why he loves Chicago theater.
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
9
Red
Neena Arndt: What was the impetus for Red?
LOGAN
John Logan: My initial attraction was to the Seagram murals themselves. I was in
London filming Sweeney Todd, so I was there for months on end, and one day I walked
into the Tate Modern and went to the room with the Seagram murals. They had a very
powerful effect on me. I knew very little about Mark Rothko, very little about Abstract
Expressionism, but I found the paintings themselves profoundly moving and kinetic in a
strange way. I went to the wall and read a little description about how he painted them
originally for the Seagram Building and then decided to keep them and give the money
back. And I thought, “Well, this is an interesting story.” So I decided that I would read
a little more about it, and the more I read the more I thought that it was a play. And I
almost immediately thought it was a two-hander play with Rothko and a young assistant.
The shape of the play came to me very early in the contemplation of the work.
NA: Do you have a background or training in visual art?
JL: No. None whatsoever. The great,
daunting challenge of Red is that Mark
Rothko is such an intellectually challenging artist and he knew where he
belonged in the continuum of his art.
He had an encyclopedic knowledge of
painting and of artists, so I realized I
would have to gain a significant understanding of art history. I started with
The Tate Modern in London where several of
Abstract Expressionism and Rothko, and
the Seagram Murals are displayed.
then I realized I needed to go back to what
inspired him, and then I had to go all the way back. I spent eight
or nine months researching art history. Going to museums, looking
at paintings, and trying to see which artists had inspired Rothko,
how he fit into the tradition, and why and how he broke with
tradition. In a way it was like learning a new language for me—the
language of visual art. It was necessary because that language was
Mark Rothko’s frame of reference. Mark Rothko didn’t go to the
movies, he didn’t read books, he didn’t listen to radio, he didn’t
go to the theater, he didn’t go to the opera. He would listen to
records, but his frame of reference, his world, was entirely that of
painting. So before the character could speak about anything, I felt
as though I had to have some facility in the visual arts and in the
specifics of the language of art history.
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
10
Red
LOGAN
NA: In what ways is Rothko important as an artist, or
as an Abstract Expressionist?
JL: He’s important because of his absotlute,
uncompromising purity. He deeply believed that art
mattered. He felt that it should be like a religious
experience, and his great dream was to create a
space that was like a church. He wanted people to
take art that seriously because he believed it was
redemptive. He believed that it was important to
the human spirit to create art, to experience art, to be open to art because he truly
believed it allowed an exultation of the heart and the spirit. He was rigorous about
exploring those themes in his work. I think he did something that no one else has
quite done—particularly in Abstract Expressionism—and that is to create something
that is profoundly simple and profoundly moving. There’s no clutter, there’s nothing
unnecessary; his paintings are austere and savage. They’re like Greek tragedies. They’re
not Racine, they’re not Chekhov, they’re not Ibsen—they’re Aeschylus. They’re that pure
and that strong. And I think his contemporaries were influenced by other movements in
art: Op Art, Pop Art, Impressionism. Rothko was too, of course, but he stayed the course
on his vision, on single-mindedly doing what he believed he could do. He was never as
popular as Jackson Pollock or Andy Warhol, but he created art earnestly and completely
and with his heart and soul. And I think for any artist that’s admirable.
NA: Do you think Rothko’s level of dedication to his art had anything to do with
his relationship to religion or faith? He was not religious as an adult, but do you see
vestiges of his Jewish upbringing in his work?
JL: Yes, I think there’s a rabbinical streak to his work. And he brought a Talmudic
seriousness and level of analysis to everything he did, while still letting it be pure
and simple.
NA: In addition to needing to understand Rothko’s work
in the context of art history, you also faced the challenge
of portraying an infamous historical person on stage.
How did you approach that?
JL: Considering he’s such a major artist there’s not
a whole lot of biographical information out there.
There’s one major biography, by James E.B. Breslin.
It’s very detailed and sensitively written, and it not
only gives you an overview of his life, but also a lot of
interpretation of Rothko’s work. Rothko’s own writings
about art are also useful. He was a very important
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
11
Red
LOGAN
essayist on art and a very challenging thinker. It took me an incredible amount of time
to work through the logic to understand them because his thoughts are so complex. So
general biographical work, specific art history analysis and his own writings became the
bedrock of under-standing what his voice was going to be.
NA: And what about Rothko’s young assistant in the play, Ken? Was he inspired by an
actual person?
JL: No, he’s not based on an actual assistant. I just wanted him to be an emotionally agile
person who begins the play in a really vulnerable position: wanting a hero. The point
about writing a two-person play is that it’s a binary relationship. You have to let the characters respond to one another and segue back and forth. I knew that Rothko would have to
be the prow of an ocean liner cutting through the ocean and Ken would have to be the
wave that billows around it for most of the play.
NA: One of the major ideas in the play is the idea that the son has to eventually kill the
father, metaphorically speaking. Is that something that comes directly from Rothko?
JL: No, that was entirely me. To me the play is really not about art at all, it’s not about
painting; it’s about fathers and sons. I think people respond to the flamboyant grandeur
and intensity of the character, but what really moves them is the father-son relationship.
I wanted to write a play about teachers and students, mentors and protégés, fathers and
sons. To me the piece has always been very domestic. Rothko had an awareness of young
artists and an awareness of responsibility to young artists, but he wasn’t a teacher in any
traditional sense. In fact, the relationship he has with Ken, his assistant, is not like the
relationships he had with his actual assistants, which were very utilitarian. They were
servants who did what he wanted them to do, but for the purposes of the play I allowed
them to build a relationship.
NA: Why did you choose to tell this story on stage rather than on screen?
Actors Connor Toms and Denis Arndt in
Red. Photo by Chris Bennion
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
JL: I thought painting on stage would be
really arresting and exciting. Movies are
metaphorical by nature—things seem to be
literal but they’re not. But when two men
prime a canvas on stage, you’re seeing a real
thing happen; the paint is really splattering
over the actors. I wanted to do a work play, a
play about all the things artists do. They’re not
sitting around talking about painting—they’re
painting. They’re stretching canvases, washing
brushes, eating, doing all the minutiae of what
they do. And from the very beginning, I knew
it was going to be a play about language. The
characters talk, I hope, in an exciting, muscular,
12
Red
visceral way, but they’re talking. And one thing cinema doesn’t do, at least not for great
stretches of time, is dialogue. It doesn’t deal with the nuances of language. And since
Rothko, as a man and as a character, is such a verbally dexterous person, everything about
it said theater to me.
NA: You’re very busy as a screenwriter, but do you also plan to write more plays?
JL: Yes. I started out writing plays, and theater has always been incredibly important
to me. I have an active and satisfying career in screenwriting which I hope to continue
for as long as I live. But the theater especially is something I’m drawn to. I always say,
“Movies are my wife but theater is my mistress.” With Red, I rediscovered what it’s like to
be a playwright and that was very fulfilling. As soon as Red was up and running, I started
working on a new play because it’s satisfying work. And I’m working on the book for a
couple of musicals, so my plan is to keep stepping between both worlds. I hope my movie
work will inform my stage work and my stage work will inform my movie work. I’ve only
ever wanted to be one thing: a dramatist. Whether I’m writing lines that are going to be
spoken on film or on stage, or book scenes for musicals that will then segue into songs,
it’s still being a dramatist. People frequently ask me, “Is writing plays different from writing
movies?” My answer is no, not at all. Every day I wake up to write lines for actors and I
hope I will continue to be able to do that for many years, in many venues.
ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM
The art movement known as Abstract Expressionism
began in America after World War II. The movement,
combined with the after-effects of the war, put New
York City at the center of the art world for the first time.
The movement had its roots in Surrealism and included
artists such as Jackson Pollock, Louise Bourgeois,
Norman Lewis, and, of course, Mark Rothko. While the
styles and themes of artists differed, they were linked by
the fact that they all examined the human experience in
their work.
Most of the artists we now refer to as Abstract
Expressionists developed their styles and voices in the
1930s. The art of the movement was heavily influenced
not only by the era’s radical political views and
economic struggles, but by a new focus on personal,
authentic experiences. Abstract Expressionist art –
especially that of Pollock and Rothko – was hailed as
being the first truly American contributions to the avant-
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
An example of an Abstract
Expressionist Statue Cubi VI by
David Smith (1963)
13
Red
ABSTRACT
EXPRESSIONISM
garde scene. It is difficult to definitively categorize the style of abstract expressionists,
but there were two major trends: an emphasis on energetic gesture, and a reflective focus
using fields of color.
An emphasis on gesture was first introduced to the art world by Jackson Pollock, who
developed the style of pouring and dripping paint onto a canvas laid on the floor. To artists
like Pollock, the authenticity and value of a work lay in the immediacy of expression.
Each Abstract Expressionist artist had his own “gesture,” or signature, that defined the
artist’s identity and process. The idea of gesture emphasis was explained by critic Harold
Rosenberg as the idea that “what [goes] on the canvas was not a picture but an event.”
The other path that Abstract Expressionists followed was color. Mark Rothko and Norman
Lewis belonged to this group and created simple, large, and color-filled fields. Rothko,
Lewis, and their colleagues desired to create the expressive rather than the beautiful, and
distanced themselves from art made to calm or comfort by creating things that challenged
their viewers. Abstract Expressionists desired to elicit an almost religious experience from
their viewers, which contributed to the trend of creating large scale pieces that were often
viewed in smaller environments. This was done to force viewers to be enveloped in the
work. Rothko once explained that he “paints big to be intimate.”
Abstract Expressionism began to decline in the 1950s as new artists, such as Andy Warhol,
entered the scene. The movement eventually died out in the 1960s as pop culture and
irony became a more frequent focus for art. However, its influence lived on through the
artists of the 1970s and 1980s.
- by Allison Hrabar, ATC Intern
ROTHKO AND THE FOUR SEASONS
When the Mies van der Rohe-designed Seagram Building was completed in 1958, it
brought a bold new look to the New York skyline: lean, icily spare and unmistakably
contemporary. Planned by designer Phyllis Lambert (the daughter of Seagram's director,
Edgar Bronfman) and architect Philip Johnson, the imposing new structure housed
what was intended to be Gotham's most opulent restaurant, The Four Seasons, which
was elegantly nestled in a pavilion folding out of the Seagram's ground floor. Amid the
restaurant's pools, foliage and sumptuous stone and metal fittings, Lambert and Johnson
created space for the installation of art whose modernism matched the revolutionary feel
of the building as a whole. Their choice to create that art? Mark Rothko, considered by
many the preeminent Abstract Expressionist painter of his day.
Despite his well-known loathing of commercialism, Rothko apparently accepted the
commission gladly, perhaps to trump the greater popular fame of contemporaries like
Jackson Pollock. Journalist John Fischer, an acquaintance of Rothko's, offered a different
motive: in a Harper's article published after the artist's death, Fischer wrote that Rothko's
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
14
Red
THE FOUR SEASONS
intent was characteristically subversive, hoping to offend
the "richest bastards in New York" who would patronize
the restaurant, famously declaring, "I hope to ruin the
appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room."
Indeed, Rothko's main aesthetic model for the room was
Michelangelo's vestibule of the Laurentian Library in
Florence, an environment that Rothko admired because it
made viewers feel "that they are trapped in a room where all
the doors and windows are bricked up, so that all they can
do is butt their heads forever against the wall."
In order to replicate the room's space, Rothko leased a studio
in the Bowery whose dimensions matched those of The
Four Seasons and began work in late 1958. The assignment
The Four Seasons Restaurant
proved torturously difficult; the artist eventually created three
different series of paintings for the room over a period of about eight months. Although
given carte blanche for the project by Lambert and Johnson, Rothko eventually butted
heads with them, especially over the height at which the paintings would be displayed;
Johnson's intent that the paintings be hung high up on the wall so that the heads of diners
would be below the works was antithetical to Rothko's insistence that his works should be
hung no higher than four and a half feet off the ground. Completing work in the spring of
1959, Rothko and his family embarked on a European tour during which the Four Seasons
project apparently continued to gnaw at him; upon his return to New York that summer,
he dined with his wife in the newly opened restaurant, and that evening called a friend to
say that he was sending back the commissioning fee and withdrawing his work. "Anybody
who will eat that kind of food for those kinds of prices," he reportedly told his assistant,
"will never look at a painting of mine."
Over a decade later, Rothko completed a series of lengthy negotiations with London's
Tate Gallery for display of nine of the Four Seasons paintings, which he allowed only
after assurances that they would be displayed in their own room. Ironically, the paintings
arrived at the Tate on the morning of Rothko's suicide, on February 25, 1970. Today, some
of the murals are still housed in the Tate's newest gallery building, the Tate Modern.
-by Steve Scott, reprinted with permission from The Goodman Theatre
ROTHKO's V.I.P.s
Just as Rothko remarks early in the play, “You cannot be an artist until you are civilized. You cannot
be civilized until you learn.” Clearly, you had better get to know the people below!
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
15
Red
V.I.P.s
REMBRANDT– (Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn)
Dutch painter associated with the Dutch Golden
Age and Baroque movements, perhaps best
known for his portraits.
TURNER – (J.M.W. Turner) English painter
associated with Romanticism, most famously
known as a landscape painter.
Rembrandt Harmensz
van Rijn
J.M.W. Turner
MICHELANGELO – (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet, served
as a leading figure in the High Renaissance.
MATISSE – (Henri Matisse) French painter and
sculptor associated with the Fauvists, known
for his use of nonnaturalistic color.
Michelangelo
Henri Matisse
POLLOCK – (Jackson Pollock) American painter associated with Abstract Expressionism.
PICASSO – (Pablo Picasso) Spanish painter, sculptor and graphic artist, known for his
avant-garde style and for developing Cubism.
NIETZSCHE – (Friedrich Nietzsche) German philosopher whose
revolutionary ideas on morals and the individual helped shape
modern Existentialism, Nihilism and Postmodernism. He is best
known for arguing against Christianity’s compassion for the
weak, exalting the “will to power,” and formulating the idea of
Übermensch (superman), who can rise above the restrictions of
ordinary morality. In his book, The Birth of Tragedy, he explores
classic Greek tragedy and its ability to capture meaning and the
human condition.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
16
Red
V.I.P.s
FREUD – (Sigmund Freud) Austrian neurologist and psychotherapist who founded
psychoanalysis as both a theory of personality and a therapeutic practice. He proposed the
existence of an unconscious element in the mind that influences consciousness.
JUNG – (Carl Jung) Swiss psychologist who originated the
concept of introvert and extrovert personality and the four
psychological functions of sensation, intuition, thinking and
feeling.
BYRON – (Lord Byron) English poet whose work exerted
considerable influence on the Romantic movement. He is
perhaps best known for “Don Juan.”
Lord Byron
WORDSWORTH – (William Wordsworth) English poet whose collection of poems
“Lyrical Ballads” (composed with Samuel Coleridge) was a landmark in Romanticism.
He was Britain’s Poet Laureate from 1843 to 1850.
AESCHYLUS— Ancient Greek dramatist best known for his trilogy The Oresteía,
consisting of the tragedies Agamemnon, Choephoroe and Eumenides. He is also
credited with expanding the number of characters in plays to allow for conflict among
them, as previously characters had only interacted with the chorus.
TURGENEV – (Ivan Turgenev) Russian novelist, playwright
and short-story writer whose work (most famously his
novel Fathers and Sons) examines the lives of individuals to
illuminate the larger social, political and philosophical issues
of the day.
Ivan Turgenev
SOPHOCLES – Ancient Greek playwright known for
complexity of plot, depth of character, and examination of the
relationship between mortals and the divine order. He is best
known for Oedipus Rex and Antigone.
SCHOPENHAUER – (Arthur Schopenhauer) German
philosopher known for his work The World as Will and
Idea, which states the will is identified with ultimate
reality and happiness is only achieved by rejecting the
will.
DALI – (Salvador Dalí) Spanish painter of the
Surrealist movement best known for portraying images
with almost photographic realism against backgrounds of
arid Catalan landscapes.
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
Arthur Schopenhauer
17
Red
DE KOONING – (Willem de Kooning) US painter born in the Netherlands on the leading
edge of Abstract Expressionism. He usually retained figurative elements in his work, either
represented or merely hinted at.
V.I.P.s
NEWMAN – (Barnett Newman) An important figure in color-field painting, he juxtaposed
large blocks of uniform color with narrow marginal strips of contrasting color. While often
associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement, he is also tied to the Abstraction and
Minimalist movements.
MANET – (Éduoard Manet) French painter who adopted a Realist
approach that greatly influenced the Impressionists, using pure
color to give a direct unsentimental effect.
VELAZQUEZ – (Diego Velázquez) Spanish painter who was the
leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, associated with the
Baroque movement and most famous for his portraits.
Éduoard Manet
YEATS – (William Butler Yeats) Irish poet and playwright often
credited for stimulating Ireland’s theatrical, cultural and literary
revival. He is perhaps best known for his poem “Sailing to
Byzantium.”
CARAVAGGIO – (Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio) Italian painter
influential in the transition from late Mannerism to Baroque. His
paintings combine a realistic observation of the human state (both
physical and emotional) with a dramatic use of lighting.
William Butler Yeats
VAN GOGH – (Vincent van Gogh) Dutch painter best known for his
Post-Impressionist work. Suffering from severe depression, he cut off
part of his own ear and eventually committed suicide.
JOHNS – (Jasper Johns) US painter, sculptor and print maker. A key
figure in the development of Pop Art, he depicted commonplace
and universally recognized images.
STELLA – (Frank Stella) US painter, an important figure in
Minimalism known for his series of all-black paintings.
Vincent Van Gogh
Arizona Theatre Company
RAUSCHENBERG – (Robert Rauschenberg) US artist who
incorporated three-dimensional objects such as nails, rags and
bottles into his paintings, associated with the Neo-Dada movement.
Play Guide
18
Red
LICHTENSTEIN – (Roy Lichtenstein) US painter and sculptor on the leading edge of Pop
Art, known for paintings inspired by comic strips.
V.I.P.s
WARHOL – (Andy Warhol) US painter, graphic artist and filmmaker. Also a major figure
in the Pop Art movement, he achieved fame for a series of silkscreen prints and acrylic
paintings of familiar objects (such as Campbell’s soup cans) and famous people (like
Marilyn Monroe) that are treated with objectivity and precision.
BRUEGEL— (Pieter Bruegel the Elder) Flemish painter known
for his landscapes and peasant scenes. He is associated with the
Dutch and Flemish Renaissance.
VERMEER— (Jan Vermeer) Dutch painter known for painting
domestic genre scenes with clear design and simple form,
associated with the Dutch Golden Age and Baroque movements.
-by Brian Jones, courtesy of The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
WHAT LEADS TO WHAT? – ISMS AND
WHERE THEY COME FROM AND GO
Art has a lot of “isms,” i.e those genres used to describe works that fall together in
the same basic time period/place and share characteristics. Sometimes the artists
purposefully collaborated on creating a new form and other times historians look back
and classify a group of artists together who did not necessarily know one another’s work.
These definitions are not absolute and artists can sometimes be placed into more than
one category. These discrepancies are what make categorizing art so difficult but also
interesting and interrelated.
Realism: Dated from somewhere between 1800
and 1850, Realism is generally defined as an artistic
genre by its rejection of the Classical and Romantic
categorizations of art. The Realists focused on the
everyday. Realism took as subject matter the lower
classes, the mundane, the “unimportant,” and
elevated these things to make them the subject of
art. As opposed to the perfectionist tendencies of the
Classicalists and Romantics, Realism focused on an
objective artistic experience, and, rather than the life
of the elite, depicted the lives of the masses, including Abendstimmung in der Campagna by
customs, clothing, work and attitudes. Realism focused Oswald Achenbach, 1850.
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
19
Red
ISMS
on the replication of life through the realistic use of light and imagery. Realists rejected
earlier artistic frameworks requiring more formalized portraits, instead preferring to
demonstrate human beings in their more natural environments and postures. As with their
human subjects, the Realists depicted nature in a realistic manner as well, focusing on
creating believable outdoor landscapes. Famous Realists: Marie Rosalie Bonheur, John
Singleton Copley, Gustave Courbet, Honoré Daumier, Hilaire Germain Edgar Degas,
Thomas Eakins, Ignace Henri Theodore Fantin-Latour and Wilhelm Leibl.
Impressionism: Though today Impressionists are
viewed as popular across a spectrum of art lovers, in
their day, they were quite radical. Instigated in many
ways by the 1863 painting Le déjeuner sur l'herbe
("The Luncheon on the Grass") by Édouard Manet,
Impressionism continued to gain notoriety in Paris
in the 1870s and 1880s. Impressionist work was a
reaction to the rules of French painting that were
governed by the Académie des Beaux-Arts, which
taught that paintings on historical subjects, religious
themes and portraits were important but still life
and landscape paintings were not. Additionally,
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe ("The Luncheon on
the goal of painting as taught by the Academie
the Grass") by Édouard Manet, 1863
was to imitate life to the point that even up close,
a painting looked like reality. The Impressionists
made no attempt to directly recreate the realistic look of earlier eras – they purposefully
left colors unmixed and used short strokes that were easily visible even after a painting
was completed. They were more concerned with overall effect and feeling rather than
detail and paved the way for later artistic movements that rejected the idea that art had to
be detail and reality-driven. Famous Impressionists: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley,
Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt and Édouard Manet.
Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande
Jatte (A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La
Grande Jatte) by Georges Pierre Seurat, 1884
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
Post-Impressionism: As the name indicates, the
artists associated with Post-Impressionism took
Impressionism as a starting point (and many of them
began their career as Impressionists). However, soon
each artist of the genre branched out in his or her
own way, exaggerating one or two characteristics
of the Impressionist movement to make the PostImpressionist style more personal to the artist. While
they shared the Impressionists’ use of vivid color
and many continued to use short brushstrokes,
they rejected what they saw as the limitations of
Impressionism, which they viewed as too intent
on objective versions of the world: light and color.
Instead, the Post-Impressionists focused on their
own distinct styles and techniques, and, while
20
Red
ISMS
many knew each other, often worked in a vacuum away from influence of the others.
Thus Georges Seurat’s Pointillism (in which he created images from numerous tiny dots
of pure color), Vincent van Gogh’s sweeping thick lines, and Paul Cezanne’s sweeping
swaths of color all evolved from the same origin, but ended up following very different
artistic paths. The artists who were defined as Post-Impressionists were younger than those
artists who had begun the movement of Impressionism and were dissatisfied with the idea
of conforming to all of the rules of Impressionism, despite the debt they recognized and
owed to their predecessors. Famous Post-Impressionists: Georges Seurat, Vincent van
Gogh, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Expressionism: Resulting from a direct rejection of art
as a realistic genre, Expressionism came to prominence
in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Expressionists were influenced by the work of the
Impressionists and Realists in that they rejected the
qualities for which both of those movements had strived.
The direct rejection of art as an objective experience
set the Expressionists in contrast to the Realists of
earlier times. They also found inspiration from works
by non-visual artists such as Friedrich Nietzsche,
Composition VII by Wassily Kandinsky, 1913
August Strindberg, Walt Whitman and Sigmund Freud.
Expressionist artists were less concerned with depiction
of a specific person or an event than with representing
an emotional truth. The primary focus of Expressionist art pieces was to evoke a mood or
feeling, often through distorting images (thus its common association with angst-ridden
imagery). Direct forebears of Expressionism include Edvard Munch, Vincent van Gogh
and James Ensor. Famous Expressionists: Wassily Kandinsky, August Macke, Franz Marc
and Willem de Kooning.
Cubism: Cubism made its first appearance in pre-World
War I Europe and remains one of the most visually
distinctive artistic styles. Cubists were Impressionists
who admired the power and visuals of African art. The
artist who is often credited with first combining these
influences with his own distinctive aesthetic was the
legendary Pablo Picasso in his work Les Demoiselles
d'Avignon. These artists took the rebellious nature
of Fauvism (another artistic genre) and moved it one
step forward, rejecting the idea that art should try and
replicate nature and consciously moving away from the
traditional techniques of perspective. Cubists would
break up objects into geometric forms and reassemble the
subject using a scrambled assortment of viewpoints. As
the Cubist movement developed, it became even more
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
by Pablo Picasso, 1907.
21
Red
ISMS
abstract. In early Cubism, the figure being painted was usually able to be identified,
but as the movement shifted into its second stage - Analytic Cubism - artists would
reduce their subjects even further. While the representation of subjects differed, the
actual subjects of Cubist works remained the same: everyday objects and human figures.
Although the Cubist movement was short-lived, it and its influence lived on through
future anti-establishment art movements like Dadaism and Surrealism. Famous Cubists:
Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse and Paul Gauguin.
Dadaism: The history of Dadaism can be traced to Zurich during World War I. Many
artists from all over Europe fled their war-torn countries for the relative safety of neutral
Switzerland. While Dadaists were not exactly a well-organized group, they could
agree on one principle: never conform to anything. They adhered to the belief that any
established rules should be broken and anything that had come before should be viewed
skeptically. The word “Dada” even has unclear origins with some historians claiming
it was literally the most nonsensical word the artists/theorists could imagine and others
claiming it derived from the French word for “hobbyhorse.” Dadaist art took numerous
forms, including painting but also collage, “found” art pieces and statues. The major
factor involved in all of these types of artistic expression was the rejection of the modern
world, a world that the Dadaists viewed as having lost all meaning and rationality
due to the ongoing horrors of World War I. Dadaists were frustrated with nationalism
and colonialism and other “–isms” they viewed as responsible for the atrocities being
committed. Some Dadaist art shocked and horrified viewers because of its sarcasm
and scatological humor. When Dadaism started to become more accepted, it could not
continue because being accepted violated the most basic tenant of Dadaism, and thus
the movement imploded. Dadaism was influenced by Expressionism and somewhat by
Cubism and was also a precursor to Surrealism. Famous Dadaists: Marcel Duchamp,
Jean Crotti, Francis Picabia, Man Ray and Hans Arp.
Surrealism: The history of Surrealistic art is intrinsically bound with the cultural and
literary movements also labeled Surrealism. The spokesman for the movement was
Andre Breton, who published "The Surrealist Manifesto" in 1924. Surrealism purposefully
challenged the more rational thinking and artistic styles that had pervaded European
thoughts because Surrealists (like Dadaists) believed that such thinking had created the
atmosphere that allowed World War I to happen. The destruction, death and horrors
visited on Europe during World War I caused the Surrealists to look for answers outside
of logic. Using the earlier Dada movement helmed by Tristan Tzara as inspiration, the
Surrealists continued to explore the anti-war politics of the Dadaists. However, rather
than focus on the negative “meaninglessness” of the modern world, the Surrealists
attempted to fuse the unconscious world with the conscious. Highly influenced by the
work of Sigmund Freud, Surrealists believed that the unconscious was the key to the truer
version of the self and the world. The strange juxtapositions and illogical combinations
of images or ideas in Surrealism give it a very dreamlike quality. Famous Surrealists:
Salvadore Dalí, Frida Kahlo, René Magritte, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso.
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
22
Red
ISMS
Pop Art: Though the term “Pop Art” is now synonymous with the American movement
popularized by Andy Warhol, the style actually developed in post-World War II Britain.
Pop Artists in both countries appropriated imagery from popular culture to ask questions
about modern society and its obsession with both consumer brands and celebrity. The
central idea of pop art is that there is no difference between “high” and “low” culture
(think fine art vs. billboard advertisements). This facet of the movement has its roots
in Dadaism, which mocked society’s obsession with reason and logic. Pop Art started
many a heated discussion about art’s role in culture, which is unsurprising when one
thinks about the ideas behind Pop Artists’ subject matter. In the same way that Abstract
Expressionists searched for answers about pain and joy in the soul of an artist, Pop Artists
sought to find trauma and excitement in popular imagery like advertising and cartoons.
By blurring the line between culture and art, Pop Artists asked questions about people
and their passions by simply holding up a mirror. Famous Pop Artists: In addition to
Andy Warhol, Eduardo Paolozzi, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, George
Segal and Claes Oldenburg.
-written by Jennifer Bazzell, Literary Manager and Allison Hrabar, ATC Intern
THEMES IN THE PLAY
Art: What is it; what makes it valuable; what makes it
important and who decides? All of these questions are at the
heart of Red. The play’s central figure is an artist, as is his
assistant. The two men challenge each other’s conceptions
of art throughout the play, questioning when art becomes a
commodity, and whether its meaning belongs to the artist, the
buyer or the viewer (or all three)? Rothko struggles throughout
the play with the concept that his paintings are being
purchased, commissioned and “appreciated” by people with
no real concept of his style or intentions. Instead, it is being
bought by people being told they “should” like it because it’s
a Rothko (or a Pollock, or a Van Gogh, etc.). Is beauty and value truly in the eye of the
beholder, or is there some element that makes works of art great in and of themselves?
The old and the new: They say that every generation reinvents itself, and throughout
the play the conflict between the old and the new comes to a head. Rothko discusses the
idea that Abstract Expressionist artists replaced the Cubists who came before them. When
he talks about this transition, it is expressed as if it is a normal and eventual part of life.
However, later when the conversations turn to who will be (or are) replacing the Abstract
Expressionists as the youngest and most modern artists on the scene, Rothko displays
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
23
Red
THEMES
scorn. Is it the responsibility of the generation coming up to push their way into the fold,
or is it the responsibility of the older generation to know when their time being the most
influential is done? Who decides and to what end?
Red: Though the word is the title, what exactly “red” is continues to be unclear
throughout the play, at least in terms of the exact definition of the color. In the same
way that the play questions the value and perspective of art, the title proposes the same
question of the color. What is “red?” Ask a hundred people and their vision of exactly what
“red” means would be different. Is it scarlet? Magenta? Barn red? Rose red? Blood red?
That is the struggle Rothko faces both as a painter and a human being. Each person has
their own perceptions, their own demons and their own struggles to face. To Rothko, red
also is indicative of life (and blood). He discusses his fear of black and that someday the
black will swallow the red (seemingly either depression or death will overtake either his
will or ability to live). Color imagery is important throughout the play (not surprising as the
play is about an artist) but the idea of red’s perpetual existence in life pervades the entire
narrative. As you watch, look for all the ways in which the playwright and the designers
have integrated the color red into the production.
APOLLO VS. DIONYSUS
In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo is a deity of extreme
importance as the god of the sun, of light, truth, prophecy,
healing, plague, music, and poetry. The son of Zeus and Leto
and twin brother to Artemis, Apollo is often depicted as the
ideal kouros, a young, athletic, beardless man. He is associated
with the guardianship of colonists, flocks, and herds, and holds
the position of the leader of the Muses – the goddesses of the
sciences, literature, and art. This association created him as the
patron god of music, poetry, and knowledge, and the keeper of
the basic order and rhythms of life.
Statue of Apollo
“Apollo is the god of order, method and boundaries…intellectual;
rabbinical; sober and restrained. The raw experience leavened by
contemplation.” (Red)
Statue of Bacchus (Dionysus)
by Michelangelo
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
24
Red
Apollo and Diana by Giovanni
Battista Tiepolo, c. 1757
In contrast, Dionysus, the son of Zeus and the mortal woman
Semele, is the Greco-Roman god of wine, theatre, and ecstasy.
Known as Bacchus by the Romans, he is often depicted in
a state of triumphant disorder, embracing the chaos of drink
and revelry, attended by a raucous band of women and satyrs
while being drawn in a chariot by wild, exotic animals. He is
known for a spirit of liberation and freedom, and a subversive
refusal to engage in the oppressive nature of order, restraint,
and the hierarchies of power.
“Dionysus is the God of wine and excess; of movement
and transformation…wild; rebellious; drunken; and
unrestrained. The raw experience itself…” (Red)
Thus the sons of Zeus offer contrasting means of perceiving
the world: Apollo with a sense of order and logic, and
Dionysus with a sense of carefree abandonment, the two
perspectives forever in a tug-of-war in the grand experience
that is mortal life.
-written by Katherine Monberg, Artistic Intern
Bacchus by Caravaggio, c. 1595
GLOSSARY
These words are used in Red. Listed below in the order they appear in the script,
familiarize yourself with their meaning for an even greater understanding of the play!
Pulsate: expand and contract with strong, regular movement; also quiver with excitement.
Peripheral: of secondary or minor importance; marginal.
Empathetic: possessing the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
Discernment: the ability to judge well.
Poignant: evoking a deep sense of sadness or regret; keenly felt.
Panoply: a complete or impressive collection of things.
Pentimento: a visible trace of earlier painting beneath a layer or layers of paint on a canvas.
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
25
Red
GLOSSARY
Luminescence: the low-temperature emission of light by chemical or physiological
process.
Cognition: the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding.
Disquieted: a feeling of anxiety or worry.
Frieze: a broad horizontal band of sculpted or painted decoration, especially on a wall
near the ceiling.
Inexorable: impossible to stop or prevent.
Charlatan: a person falsely claiming to have special knowledge or skill; a fraud.
Superfluous: unnecessary, especially through being more than enough.
Audacious: showing a willingness to take surprisingly bold risks, also showing an
impudent lack of respect.
Abut: touch or lean upon.
Flux: a continuous flow or movement.
Paean: a thing that expresses enthusiastic praise.
Bioluminescent: the biochemical emission of light by living organisms such as fireflies
and deep-sea fishes.
Effulgence: radiant splendor; brilliance.
Enigmatic: difficult to interpret or understand; mysterious.
Multifarious: having many varied parts or aspects.
Symbiosis: a mutually beneficial relationship between two different entities.
Dissonance: lack of harmony.
Ephemeral: lasting for a very short time.
Bohemian: a person who has informal and unconventional social habits, especially an
artist or writer.
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
26
Red
GLOSSARY
Malevolent: having or showing a wish to do evil to others.
Chromatic: of, relating to, or produced by color; highly colored.
Anthropomorphizing: the attribution of human characteristics or behavior to a god,
animal or object.
Declension: a condition of decline or moral deterioration.
Ubiquitous: present, appearing or found everywhere.
Prosaic: commonplace; unromantic.
Arriviste: an ambitious or ruthlessly self-seeking person, especially one who has recently
acquired wealth or social status.
Zeitgeist: the defining spirit or mood of a particular period of history as shown by the
ideals and beliefs of the time.
Futility: pointlessness or uselessness.
Solipsistic: pertaining to the theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
Hermetic: complete and airtight; insulated or protected from outside influences.
Salient: most noticeable or important.
Capricious: given to sudden or unaccountable changes in mood or behavior.
–by Brian Jones, courtesy of The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
27
Red
DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
• Rothko’s method of painting - adding layer upon layer, slowly building the image - is
very similar to the technique of creating theatre. Do you agree? Why or why not?
• When Rothko is initially grilling his new employee he cites certain poets, writers,
and philosophers that have had an impact on his work. How do these different
artistic mediums cross over and influence each other? How could the philosophy of
Nietzsche affect the outcome of a Rothko painting? What connections do you see?
• Rothko’s color palette was extensive, and many of his works include no red at all.
Why do you think the playwright chose to focus on the color for this play?
• There is an ongoing power struggle in the play between Rothko and his assistant Ken.
Aside from the dialogue, what creative choices hinted at this power struggle?
• Was the power struggle between Rothko and Ken symbolic of a greater cultural
struggle?
• After seeing the play, do you have greater insight into or respect for Mark Rothko’s
work? Is the passion described in the character’s monologues evident in the artist’s
paintings?
• There is a fine line between a painting speaking for itself, and the artist speaking for
the painting. What is your own personal reaction toward Rothko? Are you moved/
excited by his paintings? Or by his technique?
• Do you think the process of creating art is more or less important than the finished
product?
• There is much discussion in this play about the differing styles of Rothko and Pollock.
Who do you prefer? Rothko or Pollock? What is it about either artist that speaks to
you?
Arizona Theatre Company
Play Guide
28