Mixing RED with black: the death of the art movement is the only given
A tortured artist. A naive assistant. The child always kills the father. Pop art will kill abstract expressionism. It’s the 50s.
Artist, Mark Rothko, has been asked to paint a series of works for a restaurant in the up-and-coming Four Seasons Hotel. Rothko is conflicted. For a large sum of money and elevation as an artist, Rothko will succumb to the likes of egotistical social climbing and capitalist principles. This is the premise of RED. The production is positioned in the context of opposites. Red and black. Communism and capitalism. The USSR and the US. Employing the colours of red, black, and white as motifs throughout the production, each costume change, use of music, lighting, movement, and utterance creates stark contrasts. RED captures cycles of birth, death, and rebirth.
John Logan’s RED was co-directed by Nikki Eghlimi and Georgie Eggleton for the Sydney Fringe Festival. As I stumbled into Chippen St Theatre on a rainy Thursday night, I was unsure of what to expect. Upon entering the theatre, the myriad of chartreuse, crimson, claret, and cherry hues were most prominent as large canvases had been coloured, emulating the works of Rothko himself. Battered paint tins balanced precariously on slanted shelves. A sea of dirty whiskey glasses, turpentine bottles, crumpled paper, and brushes covered every inch of a generously sized workstation. It is without a doubt that the set designers, Katarina Butler, Edward Clifford, and Aidan Hale, did an incredible job. This scene oozed ‘tortured artist’s studio’ and thoughtfully incorporated elements of Rothko’s character.
The dichotomies of birth and rebirth, and old and new art were immediately established through the characterisation of Mark Rothko and his artist assistant, Ken. Rothko, played by Harry Walker, portrayed the older tortured artist, plagued by the threatening notion of the end of his career. In contrast, Sophie Newby played Ken and represented the new – the child’s eventual ‘killing’ of the father as Rothko declared. Upon Rothko and Ken’s first meeting, Rothko dramatically declared philosophical principles whilst asking Ken his opinions on the artworks scattered around the set. Rothko asked “Where’s the discernment?” when Ken answered, positioning himself above his naive assistant. These dichotomies of character were reinforced by subtle costuming, achieved by costume designer Bella Wellstead. Walker as Rothko mostly wore deep reds and navy blues, his clothes becoming increasingly spattered with a deep red paint, as though the audience watched blood pour out of him whilst the production continued. Meanwhile, Newby sported outfits of mostly white and light brown, alluding to youth and rebirth.
Throughout the production, I was mesmerised by the choreographed movement of both actors. Newby followed Walker’s movements, slashing the canvas with the brush. In another scene, Newby as Ken knelt over a large, newly stretched canvas, whilst Walker as Rothko stood stage left, interrogating his assistant on his readings of Nietzsche. An intellectual intimacy emerged between the two characters as Ken cut away the excess fabric of the canvas. It was as though Ken’s youthful and carefree ability to let go in life was revealed through each snip of the clean white fabric. Later, Rothko yelled at Ken, firing demanding paint-mixing instructions at him. Through hurried pacing and demeaning remarks, Rothko’s need for control positioned him as the jaded tyrant, unable to stop himself from asserting his power over Ken.
The broader context of the play was constantly brought to the audience’s attention. In a heated dispute about the meaning of the colour red, Ken asserted that red is “passion. Red wine. Red roses.” Whereas Rothko roared, “Russian flags, Nazi flags, Chinese flags,” reminding the audience of the inescapable oppositions of the time. But Rothko’s remarks revealed something else: that everywhere he turned, he saw an end, a “tragedy”. To me, this was the crux of RED. Although one can look at birth and death, horror and hope, one art movement and another as parallels, we must remember they are part of a broader landscape of interconnected parts that mix and melt into each other, which Rothko failed to accept. In comparison, Ken understood the way that extremes eventually bleed into themselves. Walker as Rothko angrily painted a black rectangle at the bottom of a primed red canvas. Hoisted onto the wall with rope and carabiners, it swung as Walker bashed it with his thick paintbrush. Later, Walker painted over the black rectangle again, this time in red. The canvas became a muddied mix of red, black, and everything in between, starkly representing the way that the cycle of beginnings and endings is constant and convoluted.
Everything from the chosen music of the production, to the set, costume, and performance itself, captured the essence of RED. That the child kills the father. As Rothko declared that he and his fellow abstract expressionists “stomped cubism to death,” the next generation ended up doing the same to abstract expressionism. Everything comes to an end. But from this, rebirth occurs. And such is the endless cycle of life.