RED at the Wyndhams Theatre - Molina's masterpiece

Two-handers are tricky plays to pull off.  There is the apocryphal story of two actors slogging through a two-hander when there was an offstage knock at a door which elicited a cry from the audience "Whoever it is... let them IN!"

I must admit there were a few times I felt someone... anyone... would be welcome additions while watching John Logan's play RED which is being revived at the Wyndhams Theatre.  The play premiered in 2009 at the Donmar directed by Michael Grandage while he was the artistic director there; the play transferred to Broadway, bypassing the West End, where it was won 6 Tony Awards including Best Play.  Astonishingly the one award it lost out on was for it's strongest asset, Alfred Molina as the painter Mark Rothko.

It's 1958 and the painter Mark Rothko is preparing for a major commission, the newly completed Seagram Building architects Mies Van der Rohe and Philip Johnson have asked Rothko to provide murals for the building's exclusive Four Seasons restaurant.  Rothko has hired a young studio assistant called Ken to help him mix the paints and stretch the canvasses.  Ken's admiration of the new Pop Art movement incurs Rothko's disdain but when Ken questions Rothko's decision to provide paintings for the Four Seasons' elite diners is when the paint really hits the fan...

My problem with the play - that runs 90 minutes with no interval - was that it very soon became fairly predictable: a series of squabbles where the two protagonists take black/white positions, it's all quite wearing no matter how well it's acted.  Great "themes" are raised but I felt Logan had no particular standpoint on any of them - they were raised just to give the actors something to do.

The thin play however is surrounded by an excellent production: it is well directed by Michael Grandage in his clear, understated style - the non-verbal highlight being where the two actors launch into priming a large blank canvas a dark red colour; working as an aria plays, Molina and Enoch speed paint the canvas, at one point thrillingly in time to the music.

Neil Austin's lighting is up to his usual high standard but the real winner here is Christopher Oram's wonderfully detailed set of Rothko's downtown art studio - during the more mundane stretches of Logan's script it was a pleasure to let my eyes wander over the set to relish the verisimilitude.

The fictional role of Ken was originated by Eddie Redmayne - even winning the Tony for Best Supporting Actor - but here the role goes to Alfred Enoch, late of the Harry Potter film franchise.  I cannot say he ever made any impression on me in them but here he gave a capable enough performance but the character never rang true - he was just an Aunt Sally for Rothko to argue against everything he hates about the current art scene.

As I said the main reason to see the play was Alfred Molina's marvellous portrayal of the conflicted genius Rothko.  Molina made him a real force of nature, a human bull-in-an-arts-supply-shop who knows his own worth but battles with an underlying dread that "one day the black will swallow the red" which of course happened in 1970 when he took his own life, possibly due to growing ill-health.  Molina knew how to colour the emotions though as in his character's crestfallen bitterness when he finally views the Four Seasons and realizes his error in agreeing the commission.

RED is worth seeing for Alfred Molina's larger-than-life Rothko and Michael Grandage's production but the play itself is a little like watching paint dry.