paintingsframe

Red is a play by American writer John Logan about artist Mark Rothko first produced by the Donmar Warehouse, London in December 2009. The original production was directed by Michael Grandage and performed by Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as his fictional assistant Ken.

The production, with its two leads, transferred to Broadway at the John Golden Theater for a limited engagement which began on March 11, 2010 and closed on June 27. It was the 2010 Tony Award winner for Best Play. Additionally, Redmayne won a 2010 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play.

"There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend... One day the black will swallow the red."

Mark Rothko is in his New York studio in 1958-9, painting a group of murals for the expensive and exclusive Four Seasons restaurant. He gives orders to his assistant, Ken, as he mixes the paints, makes the frames, and paints the canvases. Ken, however, brashly questions Rothko's theories of art and his acceding to work on such a commercial project.

Reviews for the London production were mixed for the play but positive for Molina's performance. Michael Billington in The Guardianwrote: "Alfred Molina, with his large frame and beetling eyebrows, has exactly the fierce intensity of an artist whose paintings were a dynamic battle between Apollo and Dionysus, ."

In reviewing the Broadway production, Michael Kuchwara of the Associated Press wrote: "They are the tantalizing first words of Red, John Logan's engrossing, often enthralling new play about art, an artist and the act of creation." Variety wrote that "Alfred Molina is majestic".

The play won the 2010 Drama League Award for Distinguished Production of a Play and Molina won the Distinguished Performance Award.

The play was nominated for a total of seven Tony Awards, winning six, including: Best Play, Best Featured Actor in a Play for Eddie Redmayne, Best Direction of a Play for Michael Grandage, Best Scenic Design of a Play for Christopher Oram, Best Lighting Design of a Play for Neil Austin and Best Sound Design of a Play for Adam Cork.All in all, it received the most wins out of any other production that season. The play also won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play while Grandage and Austin were honoured with Drama Desk Awards for their work. Molina, Cork and Oram were also similarly nominated.