Post by emelwhy on Feb 6, 2012 10:32:44 GMT -5
Red fan review (toto_too514)
www.imdb.com/name/nm0365826/board/thread/194505023?d=latest&t=20120205215633#latest
Altogether a wonderful production… Randy’s grasp of the changing face of Ken is perfect. He shows him to be intelligent and passionate and yet still innocent in many respects.
another rave review:
NJ Examiner
Review: RED at the George Street Playhouse
Rick Busciglio
This past week the George Street Playhouse started the New Year with the remarkable two character drama, Red. The play, written by John Logan (the Oscar nominated screenwriter for Martin Scorsese's film Hugo), began life in London's Donmar Warehouse Theatre in 2009. The following year, it travelled to Broadway for a limited run winning the Tony Award for Best Play. Red was inspired by the story of the abstract-expressionist artist Mark Rothko in New York between 1958 and 1959.
Rothko has been awarded a $35,000 commission to paint a series of wall-sized murals for the soon to open Four Seasons Restaurant within architect Phillip Johnson's Seagram building project. Soon after starting the assignment he hires a (fictional) decent young art student (Ken) as his assistant to tend to the menial aspects of an artist's studio, i.e. clean brushes, prepare canvases, get coffee and cigarettes, etc. Rothko states "I'm not your teacher" but then proceeds to lecture on art and literature daily.
In the early period of their relationship, totally confined to the relatively barren basement artist's studio, the intense, angry Rothko provides an almost constant stream of criticism at all areas of the art world, from the gallery owners and museums to the status-seeking buyers who collect not because of the impact of the artist's creation, but for social position or commercial investment, to the non-thinking, non-seeing buyers of "sofa-sized" or color matching paintings. His greatest criticism however, is directed at both the past generation of artists he and his contemporaries dismissed to the attic, and now the new generation led by Andy Warhol, who are in effect bashing him.
Ken, the young assistant, dutifully absorbs Rothko's negative take on the art world and Rothko's place in it during most of the first hour. Only once, on the day he was hired, does he offer an unsolicited color suggestion (Red) that brings a verbal maelstrom from Rothko. This comment is the source of the play's title. Rothko, totally absorbed in his paintings, excluding all elements of the outside world, at least during the working hours of 9 to 5, confesses "There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend... One day the black will swallow the red."
Ken in the end, turns what had been a one-sided two year debate, into a verbal bashing of Rothko and his many contradictions and hypocrisy in taking the commercial assignment, only to receive his well earned... dismissal.
Simply put, the play is a verbal battle between non-equals, at least as far as Rothko is concerned, with very little physical activity except for a fine scene where the two work together feverishly priming a large canvas red. This is a play without a hero. The author provides no clues as to who these two are beyond the studio.
Red is impressively directed by GSP veteran Anders Cato (Doubt). The play stars two Broadway and television veterans who provide a master class in acting... Bob Ari as Rothko, and Randy Harrison as Ken. Working on the nearly barren stage with only minor stage business these two spin magic for 90 minutes (no intermission).
Credit for the excellent lighting, set, costumes and music should also be acknowledged.... set designer Lee Savage, costume designer Jennifer Moeller and lighting designer Dan Kotlowitz . Original music for the production is composed by sound designer Scott Killian.
The play runs through Sunday, February 26, 2012, before moving on to the Cleveland Playhouse.
Individual tickets as well as multiple-admission package are currently available and may be purchased through the George Street Playhouse Box Office, 732-246-7717 or online at www.GSPonline.org. George Street Playhouse is located at 9 Livingston Avenue, in the heart of New Brunswick’s dining and entertainment district, easily accessible by car or public transportation.