This week of rehearsal began by an excellent interview with the excellent Lois Reitzes of WABE Public Radio discussing Red.  That is, I consider it an excellent interview when it helps me in the actual creative process to create the character.  Her question that provoked a helpful metaphor for the relationship between Rothko and his assistant Ken was whether or not this play, as many of our productions have, addressed the theme of Faith.  Lois saw the same Broadway production of Red that I did, and while she, like I, found it to be very powerful, she thought it unusual for Theatrical Outfit and I to present a character and story that, on one level, does not dramatize a redemptive reality. 

Lois believes I’m a “Nice Guy”!  That’s quite a compliment to receive from such a distinguished journalist, and so she is trying to brace herself to see me take on a character who she feels is bullying, arrogant and abusive as she perceived the character to be of Rothko in Red.   Later I thought about other characters I’ve portrayed who are not “Nice Guys”.  In fact, the play succeeds on how convincingly their antagonistic qualities are dramatized, like Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, or the terrible racism toward his own half brother as Morris in Blood Knot with Kenny Leon or Will Kidder and his tragic neglect of family for professional success in Horton Foote’s, The Young Man From Atlanta. 

The truth is, we all possess conflicting qualities and it’s a thrill of the Theater to witness how this struggle ends with either cathartic transformation or joyous comic resolution—or some of both!  With Mark Rothko, I do believe Red qualifies very much as a play about faith as Rothko is haunted by Rembrandt’s painting, Belshazzar’s Feast, which illuminates the Old Testament warning to this blasphemous King of Babylon, “You have been weighed in the balance and have been found wanting”. 

Without trying to create a Red spoiler, I would propose John Logan has created a drama not unlike another Old Testament story: Jacob wrestling through the night with the Angel until the Angel blesses him.  Whether there is a blessing wrested from another; and who might be the person of faith in this play, and who might be the Angel of Red, I will leave for the production’s attendees to decide.  Thank you, Lois, for more clues to understanding the spiritual roots of this profound Artist, Mark Rothko—a visual prophet.

-Tom Key