Saturday, July 4, 2020

Thoughts About a Rothko-Feldman Connection

This morning I decided to watch the recording I had made of John Logan’s play Red, which seems to have been conceived as a dramatized study of the painter Mark Rothko and the (perhaps hypothesized) ideas behind the creation of at least some of his paintings. The play was first performed at the Donmar Warehouse in London, opening on December 8, 2009. The role of Rothko was taken by Alfred Molina, and the director was Michael Grandage.

Rothko (Alfred Molina) and his assistant (Alfred Enoch) preparing a canvas (screen shot from the preview video on the Great Performances Web page for Red)

On March 11, 2010, that production was given a limited run on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre. That run lasted for a little more than three months, but it was enough to earn that year’s Tony Award for Best Play. In 2018 the play was revived in London on the West End, again with Grandage directing Molina, joined by Alfred Enoch in the role of Rothko’s assistant. A video recording of that production was first aired in the United States on November 15, 2019 as part of the PBS Great Performances series. This morning I viewed a rebroadcast of that program.

My awareness of Rothko owes much to the influence of the composer Morton Feldman, initially through a recording of “Rothko Chapel” released by New Albion Records. That influence was reinforced in April of last year, when the “ONLINE series” of programming by the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players presented a performance of Feldman’s “For Samuel Beckett.” The video recording of that performance was introduced by local composer Amadeus Regucera, who chose to dwell on the “Rothko connection.” He observed that Rothko created vast canvases; but, when one stood close to one of these paintings, one no longer saw large masses of color but could, instead, attend to the intricacies of texture emerging from evidence of the brushstrokes.

Regucera’s perspective never arises in Logan’s play. Indeed, the Rothko character seems only interested in having his vast spaces viewed from a distance. However, he is also interested in talking at great length to his assistant about what he does, why he does it, and what he thinks about the artists that preceded and followed him. In the former category his primary focus is on Jackson Pollock, while there is an extended salvo at the prevailing Pop Art movement in the latter category. (For the record, Feldman does not appear ever to have met Rothko; but he did come to know Pollock during his time working with John Cage.)

The Rothko conceived by Logan and Grandage and realized by Molina has his own connection to music. A record player is a significant element of the set design; and, when he is not talking at length, much of Rothko’s activity takes place with accompaniment from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (primarily symphonic but with one operatic extract). This is complemented by the tastes of his assistant, who is preparing a frame while listening to his own recording of Chet Baker. Rothko is not shy in venting his displeasure.

Perhaps I am just being contentious, but I tend not to enjoy plays that consist almost entirely of stentorian lectures. If Rothko was really the sort of person to fire off one of those lectures at the drop of a hat, then I have to credit Molina for nailing that personality trait. Nevertheless, I am not quite sure about all the verbiage aimed at either the act of looking at a Rothko canvas or the philosophical perspectives on the canvas itself. As a result of listening to Feldman, I find that, when I encounter a Rothko on exhibit, my own impressions begin simply with an awareness of being in its presence, almost as if the painting is a portal to some other-worldly space that I shall never be able to experience directly.

To be fair, that frame of mind would probably not sell very many tickets in either London or on Broadway. However, by that same count, Feldman recordings are still not “best sellers.” As far as I can tell, the closest he has ever gotten to a GRAMMY award would have been by way of a performer or ensemble that received the award, not necessarily for the actual recording of his music. That said, I still would prefer listening to 90 minutes of music that reflects on reactions to looking at paintings to 90 minutes of lecturing by the artist that created one of those paintings!

No comments: