By Manning Harris
In 2010 John Logan’s play “Red,” about American artist Mark Rothko, won Broadway’s Tony Award for Best Play; Theatrical Outfit is now presenting “Red” at the Balzer Theatre through March 11, directed by David de Vries, and it’s a riveting theatrical experience that should not be missed.
I’ve been aware of the peculiar power of two-character plays ever since I saw Edward Albee’s “The Zoo Story” many years ago and was knocked out. To me they have a primitive, almost primeval power that can overwhelm; they can produce an experience of pure theatre that is uniquely bracing and cathartic—that is, with the right play and the right actors.
Happily, “Red” has those ingredients; more about actors Tom Key and Jimi Kocina in a moment.
“A difficult and enigmatic artist” was the way a 1978 article in the New York Times described Mark Rothko. He was a major figure in the Abstract Expressionist movement who became one the most prominent American artists in the early and middle 20th Century. In the 1950’s he received a lucrative commission to paint some murals for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York. In “Red,” a fictionalized account of this period, Rothko (Tom Key) takes on an apprentice-helper-student-gofer named Ken (Jimi Kocina); in the play they work closely together for two years.
It’s one thing, if you’re an artist, to take your art seriously; it’s quite another to take yourself and your audience equally seriously. This is a recipe for serious unhappiness. It’s worse when the artist starts asking such questions as: Who will see my work? Who will understand it? Who is worthy to see and exhibit it? The French author André Gide said, “Do not understand me too quickly.” Neither Gide nor Rothko needn’t have worried.
But Rothko wants to be understood; and much of “Red” is a fierce, Socratic dialogue between him and Ken: a uniquely intense father-son, master-servant, mentor-student relationship. “Art is not a handicraft; it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced,” said Tolstoy. Rothko doesn’t quote that particular line, but he throws intellectual references from Freud, Nietzsche, Jung, and others at Ken and the audience like poisoned arrows. If you have a pedantic bent, you’ll have a field day.
If all this sounds a bit tedious, I assure you it’s not: The play takes off like a shot, and for 90 breathless minutes we are mesmerized in the assured hands of Mr. Key and Mr. Kocina. Mr. Key has never been more masterful; he finds depths of darkness, anger, paranoia, and yes, humor, that I’ve never seen him explore. His voice is an instrument of power and subtlety, always guided by the text.
Jimi Kocina gives a finely calibrated, beautiful performance as Ken, progressing from tentative, soft-spoken student to assured, challenging fellow artist, unafraid to face the “sacred monster” and call him on his imperious edicts. I love it when Rothko dares him to define the color red, and Ken coolly meets his eye and says, “Sunrise is red, and red is sunrise,” silencing the older artist’s protestations. If Mr. Kocina isn’t already Atlanta’s finest young actor, he’s well on his way.
There’s a beautiful use of music in the play and a perfect set, so let us praise composer/sound designer Kendall Simpson and set designer Lee Maples. Wonderful lighting by Joseph A. Futral. And there’s a thrilling moment when both actors show us some of the physical labor that goes into creating art as they prime a canvas.
“These pictures deserve compassion, and they live and die in the eye of the sensitive viewer,” booms Rothko. Are you that viewer? Of course you are. In this unusually rich season of fine theatre in Atlanta, “Red” is can’t-miss drama. It runs through March 11.
For tickets and information, visit www.theatricaloutfit.org.
