A compact bio-drama about the temperamental abstract artist Mark Rothko is a tantalizing one-act two-hander pitting Rothko [Jay Russell] against his eager assistant and novice artist Ken [Michael James Pritchard] as he prepares a series of murals commissioned to decorate the new elegant "Four Seasons" restaurant in New York City's Seagram's Building circa 1959.
Doubtful of placing his "art" in a place where a well-heeled dining public might not even look at the murals, Rothko questions his own hypocrisy for accepting the commission -- for money? for fame? for what? -- using Ken as a sounding-board; but Ken has ideas of his own about how art movements evolve and the artist's responsibility to art and the public.
John Logan's Red is astutely directed at Theatre AUM by Michael Krek who balances his actors' rapid-fire dialogue [a kind of Socratic method Q&A] with moments of thoughtful stillness as their characters introduce a wealth of heady subjects: they disagree about the nature of art, the definition of an artist, and the very act of creating. With forays into Classical drama's tension between Apollonian [reason] and Dionysian [emotion] co-existence, Darwinian survival of the fittest, Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy", and Oedipal impulses, both Rothko and Ken debate and try to protect their opposing aspirations.
And Mr. Russell and Mr. Pritchard are more than up to the task of validating their roles with dynamic characterizations. Each challenges the other's aspirations and assumptions in ways that keep audience attention, allowing both combatants to score points off the other and forcing us to face the question that bookends the show: "What do you see?" in any painting might leave the value of art up to the individual who views or experiences it.
