From the Donmar Warehouse in London - which brought you Frost/Nixon, Mary Stuart and this season's Hamlet with Jude Law - comes the thrilling new American play, Red. This critically acclaimed, 90-minute drama comes direct from a sold-out run in London, starring two-time Tony Award nominee Alfred Molina and breakthrough British star Eddie Redmayne.
Master American expressionist Mark Rothko has just landed the biggest commission in the history of modern art. But when his young assistant gains the confidence to challenge him, Rothko faces the agonizing possibility that his crowning achievement could also become his undoing. Raw and provocative, with ground-breaking performances, Red is a searing portrait of an artist's ambition and vulnerability as he tries to create a definitive work for an extraordinary setting.
Written by Academy Award nominee John Logan (The Aviator, Gladiator) and directed by Olivier winner and Tony Award nominee Michael Grandage (Frost/Nixon, Hamlet), Red is an award-winning production coming direct to Broadway, offering a moving and compelling account of an artist's struggle for integrity amidst fame and self-doubt.
I suppose if you've never seen a play or film about a bullying self-important artist who finds him or herself growing out of style and now must reluctantly pass the torch to the younger generation's new voice, then John Logan's Red is as good an introduction to the genre as any. It's a perfectly competent play receiving a perfectly competent production that never bores and even provides some interesting moments in its ninety minute life. But for a subject so involved and characters so passionate, Red doesn't excite.
For a while into Red, the 90-minute London import about Mark Rothko (the marvelous Alfred Molina) and a young apprentice (Eddie Redmayne), it seems playwright John Logan is careening into the gossip-and-grandiosity rut of art-bio presumption. But suddenly, as the men prime an enormous canvas and themselves in a frenzied bacchanalia of red paint, the grips of Rothko's art and Michael Grandage's visceral production close in and refuse to let go. By the time Rothko, the brainy and difficult American abstract expressionist, declares his massive 'pulsing' color-field work is 'here to stop your heart,' the paintings throb at us as if they actually might.
2010 | Broadway |
Original Broadway Production Broadway |
2018 | West End |
Michael Grandage Company Revival West End |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Play | Redmayne |
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Actor in a Play | Alfred Molina |
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Director of a Play | Michael Grandage |
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Lighting Design | Neil Austin |
2010 | Drama Desk Awards | Outstanding Set Design | Christopher Oram |
2010 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Alred Molina |
2010 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Production of a Play | 0 |
2010 | Outer Critics Circle Awards | John Gassner Playwriting Award | John Logan |
2010 | Theatre World Awards | Performance | Eddie Redmayne |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Direction of a Play | Michael Grandage |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Play | Neil Austin |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Eddie Redmayne |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | Alfred Molina |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Stephanie P. McClelland/Hageman-Rosenthal |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Neal Street Productions/Matthew Byam Shaw |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Fox Theatricals |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Ruth Hendel/Barbara Whitman |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Play | The Donmar Warehouse |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Arielle Tepper Madover |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Play | John Logan |
2010 | Tony Awards | Best Scenic Design of a Play | Christopher Oram |
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