Go See: Red at the Gamm Theatre

Red appealed to my inner art historian from the moment I heard it was coming to the Gamm Theatre.  A lover of all things modern art, I couldn’t wait to see the production of John Logan’s 2012 Tony Award-winning “Best Play” about artist Mark Rothko.  I have always been attracted to the stories of creative types and my bookshelf is lined with artist and musician memoirs.  That’s the reason I studied art history and took so much to modernism.  It was art that required the backstory.  Enigmatic canvasses were lit up by their context and my acquired knowledge.  It’s what makes it interesting.  A picture becomes more than just a picture, it’s a picture and the viewer’s perception.  Rothko’s modern abstraction is art that requires you to bring something to the table, and I like to show up with a feast of context and concentration.

But I know not everyone is as fond of Rothko’s color field canvasses.  I think a large part of that is a misunderstanding of the work or it’s reasoning.  I always explain to the anti-abstractionists that trips to the modern art museum require reading. Wall text is invaluable.  Viewers are active participants in the work.

I was interested how the skeptics would receive Red, especially those with the “my kid could paint that” mentality.  I hoped that in revealing the man behind the work, Rothko’s immersive layers upon layers of color would take on new meaning, and I don’t think Logan, actors Fred Sullivan Jr. and Marc Dante Mancini, and the team at the Gamm could have done a better job of that if they had the man himself on stage. 

Set in Rothko’s “grubby studio in the Bowery,” the play provides an intimate glimpse into the renowned painter’s work and the often tumultuous art world.  Fred Sullivan Jr.’s Rothko embodied the brilliance, self-aggrandizement and tragedy in the artist’s rise to fame and struggle with it’s at-times blinding spotlight. Introduced with a demeanor as jarring as the black seeping into the artist’s canvasses, it is Sullivan’s mastery of the stage and compelling embodiment of the painter’s overwhelming passion for his work that gradually endears the audience to the at first unlikeable artist.

It was a performance that reminded me why I fell in love with art in the first place. Sullivan captured the aura of the artist in a way only an artist in his own right could. The Trinity Rep actor had his assistant, Mancini, who also gave a stand out performance, and the entire audience hanging on every word.  Rothko preaching on his own work, the work of other art world greats, and life itself, teamed with the onstage dynamics between Sullivan and Mancini opened a larger dialogue on art that was both inspired and accessible to a broad audience.  It was a performance that left me thinking well into the next week, and left me wanting more.   

I knew that I was bound to enjoy Red.  The show is an art-lovers dream.  What I didn’t realize was just how appreciated the performance would be by the larger public.  It was a performance so powerful, I imagine that every audience member that leaves the Gamm will stop and take a longer look their next museum visit, a newfound appreciation for the man behind the work.  In that way, Red is play that will stay with you long after you see it.  You have until December 16^th to get to the Gamm. 

I’d like to thank Providence Monthly for the tickets to Red.  Red is at the Gamm Theatre through Sunday, December 16^th.  Tickets are available online at www.gammtheatre.org