"Red"

Several days ago I received an email telling me I won two tickets to see Red  at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. How did I snag tickets to a play I was already interested in seeing? Well, as posted earlier, I went to Manifest gallery for an exhibition. While there I signed the guest book and apparently when doing so, I entered myself in to win some tickets! Nice surprise I will say.

I called the box office to reserve my tickets for the Thursday night showing. Claudio and I put on our Sunday's best and braved the cold rain to make our way to see the play. Once we got our tickets we walked up a few steps to an open room. The Playhouse has a few choices of drinks and food while you wait such as a cocktail bar, café, and sandwich/cookie/candy stand. We decided on some cheesecake and coffee to satisfy our sweet tooth.

After chatting over our coffee at a cocktail table, we took our tickets to the theater. For free tickets, we had pretty good seats. The theater was a decent size, not too big or small. We sat several rows up on the left, which made for a good view of the stage. Before the play started, I took a look at the set-up. Several large, Rothko-style paintings were propped up against a wall behind a large easel. Cabinets, sinks, buckets, glass jars of pigment, and paint stains on the wooden floor comprised the painting studio. (I would die for a studio like this to work on my own paintings.)

I was very excited for the play to start due to my previous interest in the artist. Abstract expressionism is one of my favorite genres and some may say Rothko is the artist in this field. Shortly, the play began and there my attention stayed for the next hour and a half. The basis of the plot was Rothko in his studio along with his assistant, working on a commission for the new Four Seasons restaurant/hotel.

This play was not what I thought it was going to be, but then again I did not have any specific expectations. Rothko was a jerk, that is for sure. But the artist was brilliant nonetheless. This man fought with his artwork as well as his assistant throughout the play. He pondered his work more than actually painting on the canvases. Many of the things Rothko said about art and philosophy resonated with me and creating my own work.

One thing he talked about in the beginning that I fully agree with is that an artist must know something about the world (philosophy in particular) before he can successfully create art. His assistant argued with him many times during the play, even calling him a hypocrite for making paintings for a restaurant. This made for comedic entertainment as well as serious thought.

I would definitely see this play again and recommend for anyone, not just artists. It helps one see into the life of a famous artist and how they might actually work behind closed doors. I will have to take a closer look at his work soon and relate it to what I heard in the play. Things like this are what inspire me to create my own paintings. Anyone want to give me a large studio like Rothko's in Red?