Tony Award-Winning Play 'Red' Premieres at Luce on Sept 13

The Cultural Affairs Committee (CAC) brings to the Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium Red, the 2010 Tony Award winner for best play.

Red, which is staged by the Necessary Theater, and showcased in Dumaguete with the Little Boy Production, is about the famous abstract expressionist artist Mark Rothko. Red won almost every major award in London when it premiered there in 2009, and went on to do the same in New York the following year. This brilliant play speculates about one of the most enigmatic incidents in the 20th Century art world.

In 1958, the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko was commissioned, for an astounding sum, to paint a series of murals for the cutting edge Seagram Building on Park Avenue. After completing the works, he decides to keep them and returns every penny of his commission. Years later, he donates the works to the Tate Gallery in London and commits suicide.

The play introduces a fictitious assistant who engages Rothko in arguments and conversations that ultimately make us understand why he might decide to withdraw his work from the commission.

Playing Rothko is theater veteran Bart Guingona who also directs. He is matched line for line by a young veteran, also a director, Joaquin Valdes playing the fictional assistant Ken. Bart is known for playing intense, driven characters (Hamlet, John Proctor, Oedipus, etc.) while Joaquin, who started his career at the age of nine in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, is carving out a name for himself as a film and commercial director.

Red is a dramatic look at the artistic process and it is both gripping and emotional and never less than intelligent. In a series of scenes, the two characters trade wit and barbed emotions provoking us to think about the tension between art and commerce; the cycles of fashion and obsolescence; the dynamic between teacher and student, and most touchingly, the relationship between forebear and offspring.

The play debuts at the Luce at 8PM on September 13, Friday. It will have a rerun on September 14, Saturday at 3PM. Gala tickets are available at P100, P200, and P500. All tickets and season passes for Luce Auditorium shows are available for sale at the College of Performing and Visual Arts Building, and at the theater lobby before the show begins. For ticket reservations and other inquiries, call (035) 422-4365 or 0917-513-3312. (CAC)