Michael Grandage first season in West End included John Logan's wonderful play Peter and Alice with a marvellous Judi Dench and an impressive Ben Wishaw and was an insightful, delightful and magical exploration of the lives of JM Barrie and Lewis Carroll. The same production team have now revived John Logan's play Red about an episode in the life of the artist Mark Rothko with the equally marvellous Alfred Molina. We therefore have an expectation of another excellent engaging production but somehow it falls short, not because of the actors or Grandage's direction but the weaknesses in the script and story itself.
Set in 1958 when Rothko was commissioned to produce a series of murals to adorn the walls of a swanky elitist new restaurant in New York and engages for the purposes of this play an imagined assistant, Ken. Their relationship over two years is used to explore the purpose and meaning of his art and explain his real life decision to reject the commission and return the advance. Ironic really as his paintings now sell for multiple millions to the very elite and corporate buyers who might have used the restaurant.
