Scenic Design

Ada Withers

RED by John Logan

Venue Size - 100 seat Blackbox

Design statement:

RED is about Mark Rothko, a prominent abstract expressionist who was commissioned by the designers of the Seagram building in New York City, Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe, to create a series of murals for the Four Seasons restaurant that would be inside the Seagram. The play follows the push and pull relationship of Mark Rothko and his fictional assistant, Ken, over two years as they work on the murals. RED's theme is order and chaos. Ken himself explains this on page 22 of RED, Ken: “Maybe it’s like one of your paintings … Dark and light, order and chaos, existing at the same time in the same plain, pulsing back and forth … We pulse too; we’re subjects of both Apollo and Dionysus, not one or the other. We ebb and flow, like the colors in your pictures, the ecstasy of the Dionysian at war with the restraint of the Apollonian.”

Rothko: “Not at war.”

Ken: “Not at war?”

Rothko: “It’s not really conflict. More like symbiosis.”

To best depict this ‘pulsing back and forth’, I want to use shapes and patterns that can be seen repeatedly throughout Mark Rothko's body of work, primarily squares and rectangles, to create a sense of order as a backdrop for the actors to create their own symbiosis, with each other and with the world they inhabit. In order to help create the symbiosis, along with the director and other designers, we decided to have a limited amount of actual red in the show to help with the overall story.

Legalities:

Painted reproductions of the Seagram murals are allowed as set pieces as long as the copyrighted images are partially obscured, seen from side angles, and destroyed within 15 days of the final production.

Evocative imagery : Order and chaos

Weston, Edward. Cabbage Leaf, 1931. silver gelatin photograph.

Weston, Edward. Mushroom, 1931. silver gelatin photograph.

Lieu, Clara. Falling: Figures 14-20, 2011. etching ink on Dura-Lar.

Cederberg, Marcus. In Jail, 2021. photography: C-print, paper, fine art print.

Fancher, Nick. Sophie Bolton, 2021. photograph.

Literal research

Black on Maroon, 1958, Mark Rothko

Red on Maroon, 1958, Mark Rothko

As a part of his process, Mark Rothko, commonly created multiple 'sketches' with the same title, after completion he would decide which of the paintings worked best for his vision. During my literal research, I decided to use three of the sketches he made during the two years he was creating for the Four Seasons. I specifically chose two sketches with the title of Black on Maroon and one titled Red on Maroon because they best reflected what the script called for. During an argument with Ken, Rothko describes one of the sketches in his studio as the following "see the dark rectangle, like a doorway, an aperture, yes, but it's also a gaping mouth letting out a silent howl of something feral and foul and primal and REAL."

Elizabeth Fellcella's photographs of the Rothko Chapel.

The Rothko Chapel interior at dusk.

The Rothko Chapel is the project Rothko worked on after he decided not to give Philip Johnson the Seagram murals. All throughout RED, Rothko talks about how he wants to create a space just for them (his paintings), a safe space, a place of contemplation. He believes he can do this at the Seagram in the Four Seasons until he actually visits and describes the restaurant venue as "not human". He did achieve his goal later; however, with the Rothko Chapel. Even though these events take place after the ending of RED, I decided to reference the works housed in the chapel as the predominant wall treatment on the set.

Photos : Adrian Wilson

O'Connell, Chris. "Two Longhorns Lead the Charge on Reopening the Rothko Chapel" Alcade, 2021

Rothko’s studio

222 Bowery, NYC

Pictures of the studio Mark Rothko worked in while working on the Seagram murals.

Paint swatches

Design process photos

prop sketches

early rendering of my first design

first iteration of design

ground plan

elevation

section

elevation

furniture sketches

second iteration of my design - ground plan

groundplan

ground plan

groundplan

final ground plan

elevation

white rendering

color rendering-gouache

Color model view 1

Color model view 2

Construction process photos

In order to keep costs down, we repurposed flats from a previous show,

and modified pre-existing furniture to fit our needs.

Production Photos

Rothko: "I don't see the red anymore ... Even in that painting, that total and profound immersion in red ... it's there. The mantle above a dresser, just over the centerline, set off by yellow of all god-damn things. He wanted it inescapable." Ken: "What." Rothko "Black."

-Rothko describing The Red Studio, a painting by Matisse and why he can no longer look at it because the black in the painting only reminds him of Matisse's death, something he believes to be a suicide.

Rothko's chair, in the set, matches Matisse's, The Red Studio color pallete because eventually, Rothko commits suicide, and while suicide is not the overall theme of RED, it is an undercurrent of many of the conversations Rothko has with Ken.