Red drops into the studio of abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko as he develops his famous Seagram Murals for the Four Seasons restaurant.  Rothko and his young assistant spar over issues of art, commerce, and philosophy. 

The play is a taut and passionate drama with a visually stunning design that explores major questions of creative expression and ownership.  The tension between commerce and creation is a central theme of the play: can Rothko create genuine works of art—works that provoke feeling, that are as mythically grand as he intends—while working under commission to decorate a restaurant?  Is it possible for commercial viability and artistic integrity to coexist, or does the former necessarily corrupt the latter?  The relationship between Ken and Rothko, which serves as a proxy for that between abstract expressionism and pop art, is also full of questions: is it necessary, as Rothko proposes, for each generation to “kill” the former, even if they respect them?  Is there a way for two successive ideals to coexist, or does the later one always invalidate the earlier?  Finally, the play explores the relationship between art and viewer, and whether art has to challenge us and make us feel something, or whether some art is less audacious.  If so, as Rothko asks, is it still “art?”

A contemporary of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Barnett Newman, Rothko lived from 1903 until his suicide in 1970, and was a mainstay of the abstract expressionist movement, famed for the bold fields and planes of color (particularly shades of red) in his work.  In the play, a young man named Ken arrives at Rothko’s studio, ready for his first day at work, only for Rothko to immediately demand his opinions on art.  Rothko is beginning work on the Seagram Murals, a commission for which he has accepted $35,000.  As the months pass, Rothko and Ken strike up a contentious, but sincere friendship, and while they work together, they discuss topics from the philosophical to the deeply personal.  When their debates become more intense, Rothko reveals that beneath his bluster he feels cornered, trapped by his own age and the rising pop art movement.  He and his colleagues, Rothko feels, “killed” cubism, and now he worries that Andy Warhol and the other rising young artists are beginning the task of “killing” him and his peers—Jackson Pollock has already died in a car crash that Rothko considers suicide.  Ultimately, Ken accuses the older painter of hypocrisy for accepting the Seagram commission; Rothko rejects the commission and returns the money, and then fires Ken, telling him to get out into the world, live his life, and paint.

Red was first performed at the Donmar Warehouse in London in December 2009, and starred Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as Ken.  The production transferred successfully to Broadway in March 2010, keeping the same cast and creative team, and was nominated for seven Tony Awards.  It won six, including Best Play, and also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play.  Since its New York premiere, Red has been one of the most-produced plays at regional theatres around the U.S. 

John Logan (b. 1961) is a Tony Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated American playwright and screenwriter.  He has worked extensively in Chicago as a playwright, producing works such as Never the Sinner (1985), Hauptmann (1986), and Music from a Locked Room (1989).  He later began working as a screenwriter, and has produced such acclaimed screenplays as Gladiator (2000), The Last Samurai (2003), The Aviator (2004), Rango (2011), Coriolanus (2011), Hugo (2011), Skyfall (2012), and Noah (2014).  While the range of his work makes it difficult to identify a John Logan “style,” the writer’s dramas on stage and screen frequently involve explorations of historical figures characterized by a visceral emotional life and vigorously intellectual outlook.  His more recent work for the stage includes Peter and Alice (2013), which starred Dame Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw, and I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers (2013), which starred Bette Midler.