For artists, the creation of a painting (or anything else artistic, for that matter), has the same passion and life-or-death struggle as the storyline of any play or opera. It’s the eternal struggle to make something true, something that has never existed before, and it demands the sacrifice of real blood, sweat and tears to have any hope of victory.
That struggle is at the heart of John Logan’s Tony-winning play “Red,” coming to Salt Lake Acting Company Feb. 8 through March 4 in a production directed by Kevin Myhre (tickets are available online). The play, which follows artist Mark Rothko and his assistant during the creation of paintings for the Four Seasons restaurant and over the course of several years, wrestles with the purpose and purity of art as well as the darkness inside the soul of an artist. Rothko and his assistant argue about everything, and doing so hope to discover what it means to be an artist.
“As much as any stage work I can think of, ‘Red’ captures the dynamic relationship between an artist and his creations,” reads the New York Times review of the play, which won six Tonys, a Drama Desk Award and a Drama League Award. “An obsessive lover’s possessiveness and perplexity glitter in this Rothko’s eyes like a fever as he runs a tentative, caressing hand over a canvas or looks out at the (unseen) painting on the fourth wall between the stage and the audience.”
Comments