Reviews
The Evening Standard
Henry Hitchings
"Dripping as it does with artsy grandiloquence, Red is a play that will divide audiences. However, both Molina and Redmayne are in exhilarating form and Grandage has satisfyingly choreographed their chemistry."
09/12/2009
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The Daily Express
Paul Callan
"A moving portrait of a great artist... Alfred Molina, blinking angrily behind his spectacles, festers with bitterness for much of this 95-minute play. It is a powerful performance by the heavy-set actor."
11/12/2009
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The Guardian
Michael Billington
"At first, Logan seems in danger of lapsing into a lecture on aesthetics … But the drama quickens into life… what emerges is something rare in modern drama: a totally convincing portrait of the artist as a working visionary."
09/12/2009
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The Independent
Paul Taylor
"A brilliantly acted production... Alfred Molina plays Rothko splendidly as an almost Asperger's-syndrome, tunnel-visioned visionary who is exorbitantly intent on turning his studio – and life – into a stage-managed theatrical set where the work can be seen in the best possible artificial light. As Ken, Eddie Redmayne gives further proof that he looks set to become the Mark Rylance of his generation... Recommended."
09/12/2009
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Bassett
"Michael Grandage's production is thrilling, primarily because Molina and Redmayne quarrel over artistic principles with fiery tempers. They confess to inner demons – harrowing memories or depressive fears – but then gore each other anew. These excellent actors – like Rothko's paintings – also offer multilayered depictions... Well worth seeing."
13/12/2009
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The Stage
Ben Dowell
"At times it feels like a history of art lecture and it is hard to believe that a man like Rothko, given the chronic narcissism and solipsistic agonising he shows here, would take time to speak to such a young pretender... But there is no doubting the brilliance of Alfred Molina’s performance which inhabits Rothko’s despair almost as if he is trapped inside one of the dark black lines of a Seagram mural. Redmayne is a fabulous foil..."
09/12/2009
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Time Out
Caroline McGinn
"...the first 50 minutes, in which Rothko holds forth about 'pulsation' , Apollonian and Dionysiac balance, and his own will to greatness, suffer from too little action and too much Nietzsche-picking. But Michael Grandage's productions, whilst always lit and designed with great artistry, are primarily canvases for the actors, and two superb performances stop this being arty in all the wrong ways."
21/12/2009
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The Times
Benedict Nightingale
"I wasn’t wholly convinced by Logan’s attempt to deepen Ken’s character by giving him a past in which his parents were murdered by burglars. But Rothko’s denunciation of the growing triviality of an America in love with fame, celebrity and Andy Warhol carried me with it. Not only does Molina make you feel the artist’s mottled fury. He suggests what the play ends too soon to show: why Rothko sliced open his wrists in suicidal despair in 1970."
10/12/2009
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The Observer
Susannah Clapp
"This is a first-rate production of a second-rate play. Fuelled by the rush of Adam Cork's score, which moves from Bach to Chet Baker, it's terrific at the physical business of making a picture… Rothko declared that large paintings were like "dramas". The stage, which is by definition figurative, isn't the easiest place for an abstract expressionist. Yet Christopher Oram's design, perhaps the best ever theatrical realisation of a painter's mind, brilliantly embodies Rothko's idea."
13/12/2009
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The Daily Telegraph
Charles Spencer
"Red will almost certainly become a snob hit among the chattering classes, who will then go on to patronise the kind of swanky restaurant Rothko despised and discuss the play over the starters. But it strikes me as a second-rate piece that diminishes a great artist while bumming a ride on a talent far greater than the playwright possesses himself."
09/12/2009
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