Fact, Fiction and Interpretation: Conversations about Red

Kate Rothko Prizel and Gregory Boyd

American playwright John Logan’s Tony Award-winning play Red, a two-man play about Mark Rothko, will be produced by the Alley Theatre March 7-25.  In tandem with this production, the Rothko Chapel will host a discussion between Mark Rothko’s daughter, Kate Rothko Prizel, and Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd moderated by Dr. Terrence Doody of Rice University. The conversation will explore the play’s  portrayal of Mark Rothko and his philosophy of art as well as the interweaving of fact and fiction in the service of drama.   Logan’s play is a searing portrait of Rothko’s ambition and vulnerability as he tries to create a definitive work for an extraordinary setting. Red begins as Rothko has just landed the biggest commission in the history of modern art, a series of murals for New York’s famed Four Seasons restaurant. In the two fascinating years that follow, Rothko works feverishly with his young assistant, Ken, a fictional character representing a composite of Rothko’s many assistants. But when Ken gains the confidence to challenge him, Rothko faces the agonizing possibility that his crowning achievement could also become his undoing.