Describe the picture
RED
John Logan
Setting
Rothko’s studio, 222 Bowery, New York City,
Circa 1958-1959.
Rothko’s studio is an old gymnasium. The hardwood floor is splattered and stained with
hues of dark red paint. There is a cluttered counter or tables filled with buckets of
paint, tins of turpentine, tubes of glue, crates of eggs, bottles of Scotch, packets of
pigment, coffee cans filled with brushes, a portable burner or stovetop, and a phone.
There is also a phonograph with messy stacks of records.
There is one door leading to an unseen vestibule where the characters change into their
work clothes and enter and exit the studio.
Most importantly, representations of some of Rothko’s magnificent Seagram Mural
paintings are stacked and displayed around the room. Rothko had a pulley system that
could raise, lower and display several of the paintings simultaneously. The paintings
could be repositioned throughout the play, with a different arrangement for each scene.
There is also an imaginary painting ‘hanging’ right in front of the audience, which
Rothko studies throughout the play.
Alternately, the entire setting could be abstract.
Dedicated to StephenSondheim
For reminding me
4
SCENE ONE
ROTHKO stands, staring forward.
He is looking directly at the audience. {He is actually studying one of his Seagram
Mural paintings, which hangs before him.)
Pause.
ROTHKO lights a cigarette. He wears thick glasses and old, ill-fitting clothes spattered
with specks of glue and paint.
Contemplative classical music is playing on a phonograph.
ROTHKO takes a drag on his cigarette.
Pause.
There is the sound of a door opening and closing from the unseen entry vestibule
offstage.
KEN, a man in his early 20s, enters nervously. He wears a suit and tie. This is the first
time he has been in the studio. He looks around.
He is about to speak.
ROTHKO gestures for him not to speak. Then he beckons for KEN to join him.
KEN goes to ROTHKO, stands next to him.
ROTHKO indicates the central painting; the audience.
ROTHKO: What do you see?
KEN is about to respond -
ROTHKO: Wait. Stand closer. You’ve got to get close. Let it pulsate. Let it work on you.
Closer. Too close. There. Let it spread out. Let it wrap its arms around you; let it
embrace you, filling even your peripheral vision so nothing else exists or has ever
existed or will ever exist. Let the picture do its work ~ But work with it. Meet it
halfway for God’s sake! Lean forward, lean into it. Engage with it!... Now, what do you
see? - Wait, wait, wait!
He hurries and lowers the lighting a bit, then returns to KEN.
ROTHKO: So, now, what do you see? — Be specific. No, be exact Be exact - but
sensitive. You understand? Be kind.
Be a human being, that’s all I can say. Be a human being for once in your life! These
pictures deserve compassion and they live or die in the eye of the sensitive viewer,
they quicken only if the empathetic viewer will let them. That is what they cry out for.
That is why they were created. That is what they deserve,..Now... What do you see?
Beat.
KEN: Red.
ROTHKO: But do you like it?
KEN: Mm.
ROTHKO: Speak up.
KEN: Yes.
ROTHKO: Of course you like it - how can you not like it?! Everyone likes everything
nowadays. They like the television and the phonograph and the soda pop and the
shampoo and the Cracker Jack. Everything becomes everything else and it’s all nice and
pretty and likable. Everything is fun in the sun! Where’s the discernment? Where’s the
arbitration that separates what I like from what I respect, what I deem worthy, what
has...listen to me now... significance.
ROTHKO moves and turns up the lights againt although he keeps them relatively low,
and then switches off the record player, as he continues.
ROTHKO: Maybe this is a dinosaur talking. Maybe I’m a dinosaur sucking up the oxygen
from you cunning little mammals hiding in the bushes waiting to take over. Maybe I’m
speaking a lost language unknown to your generation. But a generation that does not
aspire to seriousness, to meaning, is unworthy to walk in the shadow of those who have
gone before, I mean those who have struggled and surmounted, I mean those who have
aspired, I mean Rembrandt, I mean Turner, I mean Michelangelo and Matisse... I mean
obviously Rothko.
He stares at KEN, challenging.
ROTHKO: Do you aspire?
KEN: Yes.
ROTHKO: To what? To what do you aspire?
KEN: I want to be a painter so I guess I aspire to. ..painting.
ROTHKO: Then those clothes won’t do. We work here. Hang up your jacket outside. I
appreciate you put on your Sunday clothes to impress me, it’s poignant really, touches
me, but it’s ridiculous. We work hard here; this isn’t a goddamn Old World salon with
tea cakes and lemonade. Go hang up your jacket outside.
KEN exits to the entry vestibule off stage. He returns without his jacket Takes off his
tie and rolls up his sleeves.
ROTHKO: Sidney told you what I need here?
KEN: Yes.
ROTHKO busies himself, sorting brushes, arranging canvases, etc., as:
ROTHKO: We start every morning at nine and work until five. Just like bankers. You’ll
help me stretch the canvases and mix the paints and clean the brushes and build the
stretchers and move the paintings and also help apply the ground color ~ which is not
painting, so any lunatic assumptions you make in that direction you need to banish
immediately. You’ll pick up food and cigarettes and anything else I want, any whim, no
matter how demanding or demeaning. If you don’t like that, leave right now. Answer me.
Yes or no
.ROTHKO: Consider: I am not your rabbi, I am not your father, I am not your shrink, I
am not your friend, I am not your teacher ~ I am your employer. You understand?
KEN: Yes.
ROTHKO: As my assistant you will see many things here, many ingenious things. But
they’re all secret. You cannot talk about any of this. Don’t think I don’t have enemies
because I do and I don’t just mean the other painters and gallery owners and museum
curators and goddamn-son- of-a-bitch-art-critics, not to mention that vast panoply of
disgruntled viewers who loathe me and my work because they do not have the heart,
nor the patience, nor the capacity, to think, to understand, because they are not human
beings, like we talked about, you remember?
KEN: Yes.
ROTHKO: I’m painting a series of murals now - [He gestures all around.) - I’ll probably
do thirty or forty and then choose which work best, in concert, like a fugue. You’ll help
me put on the undercoat and then I’ll paint them and then I’ll look at them and then paint
some more. I do a lot of layers, one after another, like a glaze, slowly building the
image, like pentimento, letting the luminescence emerge until it’s done.
KEN: How do you know when it’s done?
ROTHKO: There’s tragedy in every brush stroke.
KEN: Ah.
ROTHKO; Swell. Let’s have a drink.
ROTHKO pours two glasses of Scotch. He hands one to KEN.
They drink. KEN is unused to drinking so early in the morning. Beat.
ROTHKO: Answer me a question... Don’t think about it, just say the first tiling that
comes into your head. No cognition.
KEN: Okay.
ROTHKO; You ready?
KEN: Yeah.
ROTHKO: Who’s your favourite painter?
KEN: Jackson Pollock.
ROTHKO: {Wounded) Ah.
KEN: Sorry.
ROTHKO: No, no -
KEN: Let me do it again.
ROTHKO: No -
KEN: Come on -
ROTHKO: No, it’s silly -
KEN: Come on, ask me again.
ROTHKO: Who’s your favourite painter?
KEN: Picasso.
KEN laughs.
ROTHKO doesn’t
ROTHKO glowers at him.
KEN’s laugh dies.
ROTHKO roams.
ROTHKO: Hmm, Pollock... Always Pollock. Don’t get me wrong, he was a great painter,
we came up together, I knew him very well.
KEN: Give me a second.
KEN moves to the middle of the room and takes in all the paintings.
ROTHKO: So?
KEN: Give me a second.
Beat.
KEN: Disquieted.
ROTHKO: And?
KEN: Thoughtful.
ROTHKO: And?
KEN: Um... Sad.
ROTHKO: Tragic
KEN: Yeah.
ROTHKO: They’re for a restaurant.
KEN: What?
ROTHKO: They’re for a restaurant.
ROTHKO smiles. He enjoys this.
ROTHKO: So I’m minding my own business when Mister Philip Johnson calls me. You
know Mister Philip Johnson, the world-renowned architect?
ROTHKO: Of course you don’t know him personally, you don’t know anyone personally.
Don’t interrupt. Mister Philip Johnson calls me. He’s designing the new Seagram
Building on Park Avenue, he and Mies van der Rohe.
These are names with which to conjure, are they not?
Philip Johnson and Mies van der Rohe, titans of their field, revolutionists. Together they
are making a building unlike anything the world has yet seen, reflecting the golden
ambitions of not only this city and its inhabitants but of all mankind. In this building
there is to be a restaurant called the Four Seasons, like the Vivaldi, and on the walls of
this restaurant.
He gestures expansively to his paintings.
Beat.
ROTHKO: [Proud) Thirty-five thousand dollars they are paying me. No other painter
comes close.
KEN is impressed. Thirty-five thousand dollars is a fortune. Call it two million dollars in
today’s money.
ROTHKO walks to the center of the room, filling himself with the work.
ROTHKO: My first murals... Imagine a frieze all around the room, a continuous narrative
filling the walls, one to another, each a new chapter, the story unfolding, look and they
are there, inescapable and inexorable, like doom.
KEN: Are these ones done?
ROTHKO: They’re in process. I have to study them now.
KEN: Study them?
ROTHKO: Most of painting is thinking. Didn’t they teach you that? Ten percent is
putting paint onto the canvas. The rest is waiting.
ROTHKO: All my life I wanted just this, my friend: to create a place... A place where the
viewer could live in contemplation with the work and give it some of the same attention
and care I gave it. Like a chapel... A place of communion.
KEN: But.. .it’s a restaurant.
ROTHKO: No... I will make it a temple.
Beat.
ROTHKO is lost in his paintings.
KEN watches him for a moment.
Then he moves to the phonograph. He turns it on, lowers the needle. The classical
music plays.
He studies ROTHKO.
SCENE TWO
ROTHKO stands starting at the central painting; the audience.
Classical music plays from the phonograph. (ROTHKO favoured Mozart and Schubert.)
KEN enters. He carries bags of Chinese takeout food. He now wears work clothes
splattered with paint and glue. Months have passed and he is more comfortable here.
KEN puts a handful of change into an empty coffee can and then unloads the cartons of
food.
ROTHKO muses.
ROTHKO: Rembrandt and Rothko... Rembrandt and Rothko... Rothko and Rembrandt,..
Rothko and Rembrandt... And Turner. Rothko and Rembrandt and Turner.., Rothko and
Rembrandt and Turner -
KEN: - Oh my.
Beat.
ROTHKO lights a cigarette.
KEN: The Chinese place is closing.
ROTHKO: Everything worthwhile ends. We are in the perpetual process now: creation,
maturation, cessation.
KEN: There’s another Chinese round the comer.
ROTHKO: The eternal cycles grind on, generations pass away, hope turns arid, but
there’s another Chinese round the comer.
KEN: Not much for small talk.
ROTHKO: It’s small.
He joins KEN. He stands and eats Chinese food messily with a fork through the
following.
KEN: I went to the Modern last night, saw the Picasso show.
ROTHKO: And?
KEN: I don’t think he’s so much concerned with generations passing away.
ROTHKO: Don’t kid yourself, kid. That man - though now a charlatan of course signing
menus for money like Dali, when he’s not making ugly little pots, also for money — that
man at his best understood the workings of time... Where’s the receipt?
KEN gives him the receipt for the Chinese food.
ROTHKO puts it into a shoebox filled with other receipts as he continues without
stopping.
ROTHKO: Tragic, really, to grow superfluous in your own lifetime. We destroyed
Cubism, de Kooning and me and Pollock and Barnett Newman and all the others. We
stomped it to death. Nobody can paint a Cubist picture today.
KEN: You take pride in that. ‘Stomping’ Cubism to death.
ROTHKO: The child must banish the father. Respect him, but kill him.
KEN: And enjoy it?
ROTHKO: Doesn’t matter. Just be audacious and do it...
Courage in painting isn’t facing the blank canvas, it’s facing Manet, it’s facing
Velasquez. All we can do is move beyond what was there, to what is here, and hope to
get some intimation of what will be here. ‘What is past and passing and to come.’ That’s
Yeats, whom you haven’t read.
KEN: Come on, but Picasso -
ROTHKO tries another carton of food, keeps eating.
ROTHKO: Picasso I thank for teaching me that movement is everything! Movement is
life. The second we’re bom we squall, we writhe, we squirm; to live is to move. Without
movement paintings are what?
KEN: Dead?
ROTHKO: Precisely... [He gestures to his paintings.) Look at the tension between the
blocks of color: the dark and the light, the red and the black and the brown. They exist
in a state of flux - of movement. They abut each other on the actual canvas, so too do
they abut each other in your eye. They ebb and flow and shift, gently pulsating. The
more you look at them the more they move... They float in space, they breathe...
Movement, communication, gesture, flux, interaction; letting them work... They’re not
dead because they’re not static. They move through space if you let them, this
movement takes time, so they’re temporal. They require time.
ROTHKO: This is why it’s so important to me to create a place. A place the viewer can
contemplate the paintings over time and let them move.
KEN: {Excited.) They need the viewer. They’re not like representational pictures, like
traditional landscapes or portraits.
ROTHKO: Tell me why.
KEN: Because they change, they move, they pulse.
Representational pictures are unchanging; they don’t require the active participation of
the viewer. Go to the Louvre in the middle of the night and the ‘Mona Lisa’ will still be
smiling. But do these paintings still pulse when they’re alone?
KEN is lost in thought.
ROTHKO watches him, pleased.
KEN: That’s why you keep the lights so low.
ROTHKO: Is it?
KEN: To help the illusion. Like a magician. Like a play. To keep it mysterious, to let the
pictures pulsate. Turn on bright lights and the stage effect is ruined - suddenly it’s
nothing but a bare stage with a bunch of fake walls.
KEN goes to the light switches. He snaps on all the lights. Ugly fluorescent lights sizzle
on. The room immediately loses its magic.
ROTHKO: What do you see?
KEN: My eyes are adjusting... Just...White.
ROTHKO: What does white make you think of?
KEN: Bones, skeletons... Charnel house... Anemia... Cruelty.
ROTHKO is surprised by this response.
KEN: It’s like an operating theatre now.
ROTHKO: How does white make youfeet?
KEN: Frightened?
ROTHKO: Why?
KEN: Doesn’t matter.
ROTHKO: Why?
KEN: It’s like the snow...outside the room where my parents died. It was winter. I
remember the snow outside the window: white... (Turns his attention to the paintings.)
And the pictures in this light... They’re flat. Vulgar... This light hurts them.
ROTHKO turns off the fluorescent lights.
The normal light returns.
ROTHKO: You see how it is with them? How vulnerable they are?,.. People think Pm
controlling: controlling the light; controlling the height of the pictures; controlling the
shape of the gallery... It’s not controlling, it’s protecting. A picture lives by
companionship. It dies by the same token. It’s a risky act to send it out into the world.
KEN tosses away the cartons of food and straightens up.
ROTHKO puts on a new classical record. Moves back to studying his central painting.
A beat as the mood settles.
KEN: You ever paint outdoors?
ROTHKO: You mean out in nature?
KEN: Yeah.
ROTHKO: Nature doesn’t work for me. The light’s no good. KEN is amused.
ROTHKO: All those bugs - ach! I know, those plein air
painters, they sing to you endless paeans about the majesty of natural sunlight Get out
there and muck around in the grass, they tell you, like a cow. When I was young I didn’t
know any better so I would haul my supplies out there and the wind would blow the
paper and the easel would fall over and theants would get in the paint. Oy... But then I
go to Rome for the first time. I go to the Santa Maria del Popolo to see Caravaggio’s
‘Conversion of Saul,’ which turns out is tucked away in a dark corner of this dark
church with no natural light. It’s like a cave. But the painting glowed).With a sort of
raptureit glowed. Consider: Caravaggio was commissioned to paint the picture for this
specific place, he had no choice. He stands there and he looks around. It’s like under
the ocean if s so goddamn dark. How’s he going to paint here? He turns to his creator:
‘God, help me, unworthy sinner that I am. Tell me, O Lord on High, what the fuck do I
do now?!’
KEN laughs.
ROTHKO: Then it comes to him: the divine spark. He illuminates the picture from
withinlHe gives it inner luminosity. It lives... like one of those bioluminescent fish from
the bottom of the ocean, radiating its own effulgence. You understand? Caravaggio was
-
He abruptly stops.
KEN looks at him.
Beat
ROTHKO stares at his painting.
He tilts his head.
Like he’s listening.
Like he’s seeing something new in the painting ROTHKO: Bring me the second bucket.
KEN, excited, brings him a brush and a bucket of dark, maroon paint.
KEN: Are you really going to paint?
ROTHKO: What the hell do you think I havebeen doing?!
KEN retreats.
He watches ROTHKO closely.
ROTHKO dips the five-inch housepainier’s brush into the paint. He's ready.
Then he stands there, frozen.
Just his eyes move craftily over the canvas.
Paint drips.
KEN is breathless.
ROTHKO is coiled.
He tilts his head, studying, adjudicating.
He considers the color of the paint in the bucket. Needs something.
ROTHKO: Gimme black number four and the first maroon.
KEN brings some powdered pigments in old jars.
ROTHKO instructs, still barely moving. His eyes dart from the bucket of paint to the
canvas.
ROTHKO: A pinch of black.
KEN adds a bit of black pigment, stirs it carefully.
ROTHKO: Just that amount again.
KEN adds a bit more, keeps stirring.
ROTHKO: Twice as much maroon.
KEN adds some maroon pigment, keeps stirring.
ROTHKO is unsure.
He looks at the painting.
The moment is passing.
He is getting desperate.
ROTHKO: {To himself, frustrated) Come on...come on..,come on... What does it need?
KEN: Red.
ROTHKO: I wasn’t talking to you!
Beat.
Tragically, the moment has passed for ROTHKO.
He FLINGS the paintbrush, away. It splatters.
He spins on KEN.
ROTHKO: DON’T YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN!
He rages, stomping restlessly around the room.
ROTHKO: By what right do you speak?! By what right do you express an opinion on my
work? Who the fuck are you? What have you done? What have you seen? Where have
you earned the right to exist here with me and these things you don’t understand?!
‘RED?!’ You want to paint the thing?! Go ahead - here’s red-!
He clumsily slings packets of various red paints at KEN.
ROTHKO: And red! And red! And red! - I don’t even know what that means! What does
‘red’ mean to me? You mean scarlet? You mean crimson? You mean plum-mulberry-
magenta-burgundy-salmon-carmine-camelian-coral? Anything but ‘red!’ What is
‘RED?!’
ROTHKO stands, getting his breath, collecting himself
Beat.
KEN picks up the packets of paint from the floor.
ROTHKO prowls, discontent.
Pause.
KEN: I meant sunrise.
ROTHKO: Sunrise?
KEN: I meant the red at sunrise... The feeling of it ROTHKO: (Derisive.) Oh, the ‘feeling
of it.’
Beat.
KEN continues to clean up, clearing away the bucket of paint and brush.
Beat.
ROTHKO: What do you mean the feeling of it?
KEN: I didn’t mean red paint only. I meant the emotion of red at sunrise.
ROTHKO: Sunrise isn’t red.
KEN: Yes it is.
[
ROTHKO: I’m telling you it’s not.
KEN: Sunrise is red and red is sunrise.
KEN keeps cleaning up.
KEN: Red is heart beat. Red is passion. Red wine.Red roses.Red
lipstick.Beets.Tulips.Peppers.
ROTHKO: Arterial blood.
KEN: That too.
ROTHKO thinks about it.
ROTHKO: Rust on the bike on the lawn.
ROTHKO: Dresden firestorm at night. The sun in Rousseau, the flag in Delacroix, the
robe in El Greco.
KEN: A rabbit’s nose. An albino’s eyes.A parakeet.
ROTHKO: Florentine marble. Atomic flash. Nick yourself shaving, blood in the Barbasol.
KEN: The Ruby Slippers. Technicolor. That phone to the Kremlin on the President’s
desk.
ROTHKO: Russian flag, Nazi flag, Chinese flag.
KEN: Persimmons. Pomegranates, Red Light District.Red tape. Rouge.
ROTHKO: Lava. Lobsters.Scorpions.
KEN: Stop sign. Sports car.A blush.
ROTHKO: Viscera. Flame.Dead Fauvists.
KEN: Traffic lights. Titian hair.
ROTHKO: Slash your wrists. Blood in the sink.
KEN: Santa Claus.
ROTHKO: Satan.
Beat.
ROTHKO: So...red.
KEN: Exactiy.
ROTHKO gazes thoughtfully at his painting.
ROTHKO: We got more cigarettes?
KEN gets a pack of cigarettes from a drawer and tosses them to ROTHKO.
ROTHKO opens them and lights one as:
ROTHKO: More than anything, you know what?
KEN: What?
ROTHKO: Black
ROTHKO: The thing black.
Beat.
iy ROTHKO: There is only one thing I fear in life, my friend... One day the black will
swallow the red.
He puts on his glasses again and stares at his painting.
SCENE THREE
KEN is alone. He is at a stove or burner, gently heating and stirring liquid in a large pot.
This mixture will be the base layer for a new blank canvas.
A small painting, wrapped in brown paper, is tucked unobtrusively in a comer.
He talks on the phone as he stirs.
KEN: {Onphone.) ...that’s easy for you to say, you don’t know him... {He glances to the
wrapped painting) ... I’ll show it to him if I think the moment’s right. He knows I’m a
painter, he’s got to be expecting it... No, no it depends on his mood ... don’t tell me what
to do! You’re just like him...
He hears the sounds of ROTHKO entering outside.
KEN: He’s here. I’ll tell you how it goes. Pray for me.
He hangs up.
ROTHKO enters with some supplies for the base layer. He does not notice the wrapped
painting.
t
KEN: Good morning.
ROTHKO: Morning. I got the other maroon... I’ll take over, you finish the canvas.
ROTHKO goes to the pot and takes over stirring. He adds some new maroon pigment to
the mixture. Like concocting a witch's brew, he
also stirs in glue, chemicals, chalk, raw eggs and other powdered pigments.
KEN works on tightening and stapling a blank canvas. It is square, about six feet by six
feet or larger.
ROTHKO: I went by the Seagram building last night, it’s coming along.
KEN: How’s the restaurant?
ROTHKO: Still under construction, but they took me around, got a sense of it.
KEN: And?
ROTHKO: Too much natural light, as always, but it’ll work. You’ll be able to see the
murals from the main dining room... I made some sketches; Til find them for you.
KEN: You ever worry it’s not the right place for them?
ROTHKO: How can it not be the right place for them when they are being created
specifically for that place? Sometimes your logic baffles me.
ROTHKO goes to the phonograph and flips through the records.
KEN glances again to his wrapped painting. Is this the time to bring it up? No. He
doesn’t have the nerve quite yet,
ROTHKO picks a classical record and puts it on.
Then he returns to stirring the mixture.
Beat.
KEN: So I read Nietzsche. Birth of Tragedy like you said. ROTHKO: Like I said?
KEN: You said if I wanted to know about Jackson Pollock 1 had to read The Birth of
Tragedy.
KEN: Yeah.
ROTHKO: I don’t remember. It’s very like something 1 would say.
KEN: So what about Pollock?
ROTHKO: First tell me what you make of the book.
KEN: Interesting.
ROTHKO: That’s like saying ‘red.’ Don’t be enigmatic; you’re too young to be enigmatic.
KEN: I think I know why you wanted me to read it.
ROTHKO: Why?
KEN: Because you see yourself as Apollo and you see him as Dionysus.
ROTHKO: Don’t be so pedestrian. Think more.
ROTHKO adds turpentine to the mixture, checks the consistency by letting it run off his
paint stirrer. He wants it thin, like a glaze.
KEN stops working.
KEN: Dionysus is the God of wine and excess; of movement and transformation. This is
Pollock: wild; rebellious; drunken and unrestrained. The raw experience itself... Apollo
is the God of order, method and boundaries. This is Rothko: intellectual; rabbinical;
sober and restrained. The raw experience leavened by contemplation... He splatters
paint. You study it... He’s Dionysus and you’re Apollo.
ROTHKO: Exactly right but for entirely missing the point.
KEN: How so?
ROTHKO: You miss the tragedy. The point is always the tragedy
ROTHKO: You think human beings can be divided up so neatly into character types?
You think the multifarious complexities and nuances of the psyche - evolving through
countless generations, perverted and demented through social neurosis and personal
anguish, moulded by faith and lack of faith - can really be so goddamn simple? Pollock
is Emotion and Rothko is Intellect? You embarrass yourself... Think more.
KEN thinks as he continues to work on the canvas.
ROTHKO continues to stir the paint, occasionally glancing at KEN. KEN stops.
KEN: Maybe it’s like one of your paintings.
ROTHKO: Most things are. How?
KEN: 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 andDionysus, 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 JMore like symbiosis,
KEN: They need each other. Dionysus’ passion is focused - is made bearable - by
Apollo’s will to form. In fact the only way we can endurethe sheer ferocity of Dionysus’
emotion is because we have the control and intelligence of Apollo, otherwise the
emotion would overwhelm us... So back and forth we go, myth to myth, pulsating.
ROTHKO: And the perfect life would be perfectly balanced between the two,
everlastingly on the fulcrum. But ouz>-'V tragedyis that we can never achieve that
balancerWe exist - all of us, for all time - in a state of perpetual can only endure it with
the cool lie of reason... We seek / to capture the ephemeral, the miraculous, and put it
onto; canvas, stopping time but, like an entomologist pinning a i butterfly, it dies when
we try.... We’re foolish that way, we
KEN: But the black is always there, like the mantle in Matisse.
ROTHKO: Like the snow outside the window. It never goes away. Once glimpsed, we
can’t help being preoccupied with it for the intimations of our mortality are... {He
gestures: everywhere.) .. i But still we go on, clinging to that
tiny bit of hope - that red - that makes the rest endurable. J KEN.-Or just less
unendurable.
ROTHKO: That’s my friend Jackson Pollock. Finally it was just unendurable.
KEN: What do you mean?
ROTHKO: His suicide.
KEN: He didn’t commit suicide.
ROTHKO: Didn’t he?
KEN thinks about this as he continues to tighten the canvas.
ROTHKO isn't satisfied with the music. He puts on a different classical record. He
listens for a moment and then returns to stirring the mixture.
KEN: Jackson Pollock died in a car accident.
ROTHKO: A man spends years getting drunk, day after day, hammered. Then he gets
into an Oldsmobile convertible and races around these little country roads like a lunatic.
You tell me what that is if not a lazy suicide... Believe me, when I commit suicide there
won’t be any doubt about it.
No mysterious crumpled car in a ditch, did he or didn’t he, it gives me a headache it’s
so boring.
KEN: ‘When’ you commit suicide?
ROTHKO: What?
KEN: You said ‘When I commit suicide.’
ROTHKO: No I didn’t.
KEN: You did.
ROTHKO: You misheard... Let me tell you one thing about your hero, that man really
confronted his tragedy. He was valiant in the face of it, he endured as long as he could,
then he tried to recede from life, but how could he? He was Jackson Pollock.
KEN: What was his tragedy?
ROTHKO: He became famous.
KEN; Don’t be glib.
s ROTHKO: His muse evacuated. He grew tired of his form. He f grew tired of himself.
He lost faith in his viewers... Take your pick... He no longer believed there were any
real human beings out there to look at pictures.
KEN: How does that happen to a man?
ROTHKO: Better you should ask how occasionally it doesn’t happen.
KEN: I mean he’s an artist, he’s in Life magazine, he’s young, he’s famous, he has
money -
ROTHKO: That’s exactly it. Here’s a schmuck from Wyoming who can paint. Suddenly
he’s a commodity. He’s ‘Jackson Pollock.’ Lemme tell you, kid, that Oldsmobile
convertible really did kill him. Not because it crashed, because it existed Why the fuck
did Jackson Pollock have an Oldsmobile convertible?
KEN: So artists should starve?
KEN smiles.
He has completed working on the canvas.
KEN: Take a look.
ROTHKO moves to the canvas, stands over it, carefally studying it, walking around it.
He is looking for flaws in the canvas, as:
ROTHKO: You would have loved Jackson. He was a downtown guy, a real Bohemian. No
banker’s hours for him, believe you me. Every night the drinking and the talking and the
fighting and the dancing and the staying up late; like everyone’s romantic idea of what
an artist ought to be: the anti-Rothko... At his worst you still loved him though; you I
loved him because he loved art so much,.. He thought X it mattered He thought painting
mattered... Does not the I poignancy stop your heart?... How could this story not end I in
tragedy?
Beat.
ROTHKO: Goya said, ‘We have Art that we may not perish from Truth.’... Pollock saw
some truth. Then he didn’t have art to protect him any more.., Who could survive that?
Beat.
ROTHKO emerges from his thoughts.
He nods to KEN.
They lift the canvas from the floor} lean it up against a sawhorse, easel or wall.
ROTHKO studies it minutely.
He delicately picks lint from the canvas. He gently blows remnants of dust away.
He continues to study the canvas as:
ROTHKO: I was walking up to my house last week and this couple was passing. Lady
looks in the window, says: ‘I
wonder who owns all the Rothkos.’... Just like that I’m a noun. A Rothko.
KEN: A commodity.
ROTHKO: An overmantle.
KEN: A what?
ROTHKO continues to study the blank canvas for flaws, for discoloration, for
imperfection. He moves closer, he backs all the way up, he moves closer again, tilting
his head back and forth, adjudicating, as:
ROTHKO; The overmantles. Those paintings doomed to J become decoration.You know,
over the fireplace in the penthouse. They say to you, ‘I need something to work with
the sofa, you understand. Or something bright and cheery for the breakfast nook, which
is orange, do you have anything in orange? Or burnt-umber? Or sea-foam green?
Here’s a paint chip from the Sherwin-Williams.
And could you cut it down to fit the sideboard?’... Or even worse, ‘Darling, I simply
musthave one because my neighbour has one, that social-climbing bitch, in fact if she
has one, I need threeW.. Or even worse, ‘I must have one because the New York Times
tells me I should have one - or someone told me the New York Times tells me I should
have one because who has time to read any more.’... ‘Oh, don’t make me look at it! I
never look at it! It’s so depressing!’... ‘All those fuzzy rectangles, my kid could do that
in kindergarten, it’s nothing but a scam, this guy’s a fraud.’,.. Still, they buy it... It’s an
investment...
It’s screwing the neighbours... It’s buying class... It’s buying taste... It goes with the
lamp... It’s cheaper than a Pollock... It’s interior decoration... It’s anything but what it is.
Beat.
ROTHKO seems to have accepted the canvas.
They work together now.
They have done this many times, it is a well-practised ritual.
They pour the paint/glue mixture from the stove - the base layer for the canvas - into
two large buckets. The mixture is a thin liquid, almost a glaze, of dark plum.
They bring the buckets to either side of the six-foot square canvas. They make sure
the canvas is secure.
They prepare house painting brushes. ROTHKO rubs his rhythmically across his hand,
warming and limbering the bristles.
KEN waits. Ready.
ROTHKO stares intently at the blank canvas.
A long beat as he rubs his brush back and forth across his hand, thinking.
KEN watches him, poised.
Then ROTHKO goes to the phonograph, flips through the stack of records, finds the one
he wants, and puts it onto the phonograph,
He lowers the needle. He listens. He lifts the needle again. Finally finds the exact place
in the record he is looking for. He lowers the needle.
Spirited classical music plays.
He returns to the canvas.
He nods to KEN.
Ready? Ready.
They dip their brushes.
They are on opposite sides of the canvas.
KEN crouches; he will do the lower half of the canvas.
ROTHKO stands tall; he will do the upper half of the canvas.
KEN waits for ROTHKO to begin.
ROTHKO waits for the music.
With theatrical panache, ROTHKO waits for the exact moment the music thunders most
dramatically and then -
He begins to paint -
He moves very quickly -
Using strong broad strokes he sweeps across the top of the canvas as quickly as
possible ~ big, horizontal gestures - moving fast to make sure the base layer is even
and smooth ~
KEN does the same for the bottom half of the painting -
Some of ROTHKO’s paint drips and splashes down on KEN -
It is like choreography, they move in sync, they move toward each other and then
cross, ROTHKO lurching back awkwardly as he continues to paint so KEN can dive in
under him gracefully as he continues to paint -
The thin» watery paint splatters and splashes as they dip their brushes and assault the
canvas -
It is hard, fast, thrilling work -
The music swells ~
And then they are done.
The white canvas is now an even, flat plain of dark plum. ROTHKO steps back,
exhausted, panting for air.
KEN sits heavily on the floor, also exhausted.
Beat.
ROTHKO lights a cigarette.
Then he turns off the phonograph.
KEN rises and cleans himself with a towel. Then he changes his paint-stained shirt.
He begins to straighten up: hauling the buckets away; wiping up the floor; cleaning the
brushes.
ROTHKO minutely studies the now-primed canvas.
Then he steps back and back, studies the canvas from across the studio.
ROTHKO: (Musing.) So...so...so...it’ll do... Maybe it’ll do... Possibly adequate... What do
you think?
KEN: You mean me? You want me to answer?
ROTHKO: Who else?
KEN: It’s a...a good ground, a good base layer, Nice and even. ROTHKO: We’ll see when
it dries. Then I can start to paint. KEN: You really care what I think?
ROTHKO: Not at all.
KEN smiles, continues to clean up.
Then he stops abruptly.
Something about the fleshly-primed canvas strikes him.
He stares at it.
Surprisingly, tears come to his eyes. The emotion is unexpected. ROTHKO: What?
KEN: Nothing...
ROTHKO: What is it?
KEN: It’s strange... I’m remembering something... The, urn, color...is...
ROTHKO: What?
KEN: Doesn’t matter,
KEN: Driedblood... When theblooddrieditgotdarker. On the carpet
ROTHKO: Which carpet?
KEN: Where my parents died.
KEN tries to shake off the thought He moves away,
But then he stops again. He can’t shake the emotion.
The canvas draws him back.
KEN: It’s exactly the color. When the blood dried it got darker; that surprised me. I
remember being surprised by that...
ROTHKO is intrigued.
ROTHKO: What happened to your parents?
KEN: I don’t want to talk about it.
ROTHKO: Yes you do.
KEN: They were murdered.
ROTHKO: Did you say murdered?
KEN: Mm.
ROTHKO: How old were you?
KEN: Seven. This was back in Iowa.
ROTHKO: What happened?
KEN: I honestly don’t remember it too well.
ROTHKO: Sure you do.
KEN stares forward, lost in thought Beat.
ROTHKO: What do you see?
KEN shakes his head.
Beat.
KEN: (Reliving it.) I woke up.. .and the first thing I saw was the snow outside my
window. I was glad it snowed because it was Saturday and I could go sledding. My Dad
would take me sledding, me and my sister. But...but...I didn’t smell anything. That was
weird. Normally my Mom would be up making breakfast. It was really quiet. I put on my
slippers - they were those Neolite ones that look like moccasins. Go into the hall... Now
it’s really quiet... And it’s cold. There’s a window open somewhere... Then I see my
sister, she’s just standing in the hallway, staring into my parent’s room. The door’s
open. My sister. ..she’s standing in a puddle of pee. Just staring. Her eyes... I go to the
door and look in and see the snow first. Outside the window, so much snow, maybe I’ll
still go sledding. And then the blood. The bed’s stained with it. And the wall. They’re on
the bed... It was a knife... Apparently it was a knife, I found out later.
Beat.
KEN: Burglars, I found out. At least two of them... But right now I don’t know what to
do. I just see... I... Don’t want my sister to see any more. My little sister... I turn around
and push her out and shut the door. The door handle... With blood...Is red.
Beat.
KEN: That’s all.
ROTHKO: What happened then?
KEN: You mean after that? Um...Nothing really. We went to the neighbours. They called
the police.
ROTHKO: What happened to you two?
KEN: State took us. Foster homes. People were nice, actually. They kept us together.
But they shuffled us around a lot.
We were rootless... She’s married to a CPA now.
ROTHKO: Rootless?
KEN: Never belonged... Never had a.place.
ROTHKO: Did they find the guys who did it?
KEN: No. I paint pictures of them sometimes.
Beat.
ROTHKO: You paint pictures of the men who killed your parents?
KEN: Mm. What I imagine them to look like.
ROTHKO: Which is what?
Beat.
KEN: Normal.
Beat.
ROTHKO considers comforting KEN in some way, but doesn't.
He moves away, lights a cigarette.
ROTHKO: When I was a kid in Russia, I saw the Cossacks cutting people up and tossing
them into pits... At least I think I remember that, maybe someone told me about it, or I’m
just being dramatic, hard to say sometimes.
KEN is relieved that ROTHKO has changed the subject. He continues cleaning up.
KEN: How old were you when you came here?
ROTHKO: Ten. We went to Portland, lived in the ghetto alongside all the other thinky,
talkyjews, I was Marcus ^ Rothkowitz then. ~ -- ■
KEN: (Surprised..) You changed your name?
ROTHKO: My first dealer said he had too many Jewish painters on the books. So
Marcus Rothkowitz becomes Mark Rothko. Now nobody knows Pm ajew!
KEN smiles.
He continues to clean up.
Pause,
KEN: Can I ask you something?
ROTHKO: Can I stop you?
KEN: Are you really scared of black?
(^/ROTHKO: No, I’m really scared of the absence of light.
KEN: Like going blind?
^ ROTHKO: Like going dead.
KEN: And you equate the color black with death?
ROTHKO: Doesn’t everyone?
KEN: I’m asking you.
ROTHKO likes that KEN is pushing back.
ROTHKO: Yes, I equate the color black with the diminution of the life force.
KEN.-Black means decay and darkness?
ROTHKO: Doesn’t it?
KEN: Because black is the lack of red, if you will.
ROTHKO: Because black is the opposite of red. Not on the spectrum, but in reality.
KEN: I’m talking about in painting.
ROTHKO: Then talk about painting.
KEN: In your pictures the bold colors are the Dionysian element, kept in check by the
strict geometric shapes, the Apollonian element The bright colors are your passion,
your will to survive - your ‘life force,’ But if black swallows those bright colors then
you lose that excess and extravagance, and what do you have left?
ROTHKO: Go on. I’m fascinated by me.
KEN: (Undeterred.) Lose those colors and you have order with no content. You have
mathematics with no numbers... Nothing but empty, arid boxes.
ROTHKO: And trust me, as you get older those colors are harder to sustain. The palate
fades and we race to catch it before it’s gone.
KEN.- But...
He stops.
ROTHKO: What?
KEN: Never mind.
ROTHKO: What?
KEN: You’ll get mad.
ROTHKO: Me?
KEN: You will.
ROTHKO: And?
KEN: I just think... It’s kind of sentimental to equate black with death. That seems an
antiquated notion. Sort of - ^ romantic. /
ROTHKO: Romantic?
KEN: I mean...not honest. _
ROTHKO: Really?
KEN: In reality we both know black’s a tool, just like ochre or magenta. It has no affect.
Seeing it as malevolent is a weird sort of chromatic anthropomorphising.
ROTHKO: You think so? What about equating white with death; like snow?
KEN: That’s different That’s just a personal reaction. I’m not building a whole artistic
sensibility around it.
ROTHKO: Maybe you should.
They are growing heated.
KEN: I don’t think -
ROTHKO: Use your own life, why not?
KEN: It’s not that I -
ROTHKO: Unless you’re scared of it
KEN: I’m not scared.
ROTHKO: Go into all that white.
KEN: I’m not scared, it’s just self-indulgent.
ROTHKO: If you say so.
KEN: Not all art has to be psychodrama.
ROTHKO: Doesn’t it?
KEN: No.
ROTHKO: You paint pictures of the men who killed your parents.
KEN: That’s not alll paint
ROTHKO: Maybe it should be. Then maybe you’d understand what black is.
KEN: Back to that.
ROTHKO: Always.
KEN: At least equating white with death isn’t so predictable.
1 ROTHKO: I’m predictable now?
KEN: Kind of.
ROTHKO: Dishonest and predictable
KEN: Come on, a painter gets older and the color black starts to infuse his work
therefore, the cliche declension goes, he’s depressed, he’s fearing death, he’s losing
touch, he’s losing relevance, he’s saying goodbye.
ROTHKO: That’s a cliche except for when it’s not.
KEN: But it’s not true.
ROTHKO: So now you know truth?
KEN: Look at Van Gogh; his last pictures are all color. He goes out and paints the most
ecstatic yellows and blues known to man - then shoots himself... Or Matisse, his last
works were nothing but great shocks of primary colors.
ROTHKO: You admire those colors.
KEN: Absolutely.
ROTHKO: Why?
KEN: Well, Matisse...he was dying, he knew he was dying, but still he was Matisse.
When he got too ill to hold a paint brush he used scissors, cutting up paper and making
collages. He never gave up. On his deathbed he was still organizing the color patterns
on the ceiling. He had to be who he was.
ROTHKO: And you think Fm the romantic! Can’t you do any better than that?
He continues, angry and derisive:
ROTHKO: Matisse the Dying Hero, struggling with his last puny gasp to create that final
masterpiece... And Jackson Pollock the Beautiful Doomed Youth, dying like Chatterton in
his classic Pieta-pose,.. And Van Gogh, of course Van Gogh, trotted out on all
occasions, the ubiquitous symbol for everything, Van Gogh the Misunderstood Martyr -
You insult these men by reducing them to your own adolescent stereotypes. Grapple
with them, yes. Argue with them, always. But don’t think you understand them. Don’t
think
i you have captured them. They are beyond you.
I
t- ^ He moves away, then stops.
ROTHKO: Spend a lifetime with them and you might get a moment of insight into their
pain... Until then, allow them their grandeur in silence.
ROTHKO returns to studying his central painting.
ROTHKO: Silence is so accurate.
Pause.
ROTHKO seems oblivious to KEN.
KEN continues to clean up for a moment.
Then he stops, looks at his own painting, wrapped in brown paper.
Then he looks at R01HK0.
KEN unobtrusively picks up his painting and exits briefly. He returns without the
painting.
KEN: We need some coffee. Mind if I go out?
ROTHKO: Go on.
KEN gets some money from the coffee can in which they keep petty cash.
He starts to go.
ROTHKO stops him:
ROTHKO: Wait.
ROTHKO looks at Mm.
ROTHKO: In the National Gallery in London there’s a picture by Rembrandt called
‘Belshazzar’s Feast’... It’s an Old Testament story from Daniel: Belshazzar, King of
Babylon, is giving a feast and he blasphemes, so a divine hand
appears and writes some Hebrew words on the wall as a warning... In the painting these
words pulsate from the dark canvas like something miraculous. Rembrandt’s Hebrew
was atrocious, as you can imagine, but he wrote ‘Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.’... ‘You
have been weighed in the balance and have been found wanting.’
Beat.
ROTHKO: That’s what black is to me... What is it to you?
Beat
SCENE FOUR
KEN is alone, building a wooden canvas stretcher/frame. He is a good carpenter.
A Chet Baker jazz record plays on the phonograph.
He works quietly.
Beat
Then the sound of a slamming door from outside surprises him.
ROTHKO rages in, flinging off his overcoat and hat.
ROTHKO: THEY’RE TRYING TO KILL ME! I swear to God they’re trying to kill me!
Those prosaic insects!
Those presumptuous, counter-jumping, arriviste SONS- OF-BITCHES! - These are
same goddamn walls where I hang! You appreciate that?! My gallery! My walls!
Polluted now beyond sanitation, beyond hygiene, like the East River, choked with
garbage, all that superficial, meaningless sewage right up there on the wall! The same
sacred space of de Kooning and Motherwell and Smith and Newman and Pollock and...
He slops.
ROTHKO: What is this music?
KEN; Chet Baker.
ROTHKO: Just when I thought this day couldn’t get worse... KEN: It’s jazz.
ROTHKO: Like I care. When you pay the rent, you can pick the records.
KEN takes the record off
ROTHKO fames.
Beat.
KEN: So...how did you like the exhibit?
ROTHKO is not amused.
He lights a cigarette.
ROTHKO: (Seriously.) These young artists are out to murder me. KEN: That’s kind of
extreme.
ROTHKO: But not inaccurate.
KEN: You thinkjasper Johns is trying to murder you? ROTHKO: Yes.
Beat.
KEN: What about Frank Stella?
ROTHKO: Yes.
KEN: Robert Rauschenberg?
ROTHKO: Yes.
KEN: Roy Lichtenstein?
ROTHKO: Which one is he?
ROTHKO: Yes.
Beat. Then the coup de grace:
KEN: Andy Warhol?
ROTHKO doesn’t even answer.
KEN: You sound like an old man.
ROTHKO: I am an old man.
KEN: Not that old.
ROTHKO: Today, Fm old.
KEN: If you say so.
KEN goes back to working on the stretcher.
ROTHKO gets a Scotch.
ROTHKO: My point is... People like me... My contemporaries, my colleagues... Those
painters who came up with me.
We all had one thing in common... We understood the importance of seriousness.
Beat.
KEN: You’re too much.
ROTHKO: What?
KEN: You heard me.
ROTHKO turns and really looks at him.
This challenging tone is new from KEN. '
ROTHKO: What did you say to me?
KEN: Who are you to assume they’re not serious?
ROTHKO: Look at their work.
ROTHKO-. Not like you usually look at things, like an overeager undergraduate -
KEN: I have.
ROTHKO: Then what do you see?
KEN: Never mind.
ROTHKO: No. You look at them, what do you see?
{i KEN: This moment, right now,
ROTHKO: In all those flags and comic books and soup cans?
KEN: This moment, right now, and a little bit tomorrow.
ROTHKO: And you think that’s good?
| KEN: It’s neither good nor bad, but it’s what people want.
s ROTHKO: Exactly my point.
I
■ KEN: So art shouldn’t be popular at all now?
ROTHKO: It shouldn’t only be popular.
KEN: You may not like it, but nowadays as many people are genuinely moved by Frank
Stella as by Mark Rothko.
ROTHKO: That’s nonsense.
KEN: Don’t think so.
ROTHKO: You know the problem with those painters? It’s exactly what you said: they
are painting for this moment right now. And that’s all. It’s nothing but Zeitgeist art.
Completely temporal, completely disposable, like Kleenex, like -
KEN: Like Campbell’s soup, like comic books -
ROTHKO: You really think Andy Warhol will be hanging in museums in a hundred years?
Alongside the Bruegels and the Vermeers?
ROTHKO: Because those goddamn galleries will do anything for money ~ cater to any
wicked taste. That’s business, young man, not art!
KEN approaches. Not backing down.
KEN: You ever get tired of telling people what art is?
ROTHKO: No, not ever. Until they listen. Better you should tell me? Fuck off.
KEN: You’re just mad because the Barbarians are at the gate. And, whattaya know,
people seem to like the Barbarians.
ROTHKO: Of course they like them. That’s the goddamn point! You know what people
like?Happy, bright colors. They want things to be pretty. They want things to be
beautiful -Jesus Christ, when someone tells me one of my pictures is ‘beautiful’ I want
to vomit!
KEN: What’s wrong with -?
ROTHKO: {Explodes) ‘Pretty.’ ‘Beautiful.’ ‘Nice.’ ‘Fine.' That’s our life now!
Everything’s ‘fine.’ We put on the funny nose and glasses and slip on the banana peel
and the TV makes everything happy and everyone’s laughing all the time, it’s all so
goddamn funnv. it’s our constitutional right to be ^mused all the time, isn’t it? We’re a
smirking nation, living underThe tyranny ot^fine.’ How are you? Fine. How was your
day? Fine. How axe you feeling? Fine. How did you like the painting? Fine. Want some
dinner? Fine... Well, let me tell you, everything is not finel
He spins to his paintings,
ROTHKO: HOW ARE YOU?!.,. HOW WAS YOUR DAY?!... HOW ARE YOU FEELING?
Conflicted.Nuanced.Troubled.Diseased.Doomed. I am not fine.
We are not fine. We are anything but fine... Look at these pictures. Look at them! You
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
KEN: He’s hanging alongside Rothko now foul and primal and REAL. Not nice. Not fine.
Real A moan of rapture. Something divine or damned. Something immortal, not comic
books or soup cans, something beyond me and beyond now. And whatever it is, it’s not
pretty and it’s not fine... (Hegrabs KEN’s heart.) ... I AM HERE TO STOP YOUR HEART,
YOU UNDERSTAND THAT?!... [He slaps KEN's forehead) - I AM HERE TO MAKE YOU
THINK!... I AM NOT HERE TO MAKE PRETTY PICTURES!
A long beat.
ROTHKO roams, disturbed, trying to recover his equilibrium..
KEN hasni moved.
KEN: So said the Cubist, the second before you stomped him to death.
ROTHKO stops, looks at him.
KEN: Tragic, really, to grow superfluous in your own lifetime’... Right?... The child must
RED
KEN: Stop it -!
39
banish the father. Respect him, but kill him’... Isn’t that what you said?... You guys went
after the Cubists and Surrealists and, boy, did you love it. And now your time has come
and you I don’t want to go. Well, exit stage left, Rothko. Because Pop | Art has
banished Abstract Expressionism... I only pray to I God they have more generosity of
spirit than you do, and allow you some dignity as you go.
He glances around at the paintings.
KEN: Consider: The last gasp of a dying race,..Futility.
Beat.
KEN: Don’t worry; you can always sign menus for money. ROTHKO: How dare you?
KEN: Do you know where I live?
KEN: Do you know where I live in the city?
ROTHKO: No...
KEN: Uptown? Downtown?Brooklyn?
ROTHKO: No.
KEN: You know if I’m married?
ROTHKO: What?
KEN: You know if I’m married? Dating? Queer? Anything?ROTHKO: No. Why should -?
KEN: Two years I’ve been working here. Eight hours a day, five days a week and you
know nothing about me. You ever once asked me to dinner? Maybe come to your house?
ROTHKO: What is -?
KEN.* You know I’m a painter, don’t you?
ROTHKO: I suppose.
KEN: No, answer me, you know I’m a painter?
ROTHKO: Yes.
KEN: Have you ever once asked to look at my work?
ROTHKO: Why should I?
KEN: Why should you? -
ROTHKO: You’re an employee. This is about me. Everything here is about me. You
don’t like that; leave... Is that what this is all about? Baby feels wounded Daddy didn’t
pat him on the head? Mommy didn’t hug you today?
KEN: Stop it -
ROTHKO: Don’t blame me, I didn’t kill them.
ROTHKO: Go find a psychiatrist and quit whining to me about it, your neediness bores
me —
KEN: {Explodes) Bores you?! BoresyouV. - Christ almighty, trying working for you for
a living! - The talking-talking- talking-jesus-christ-won’t-he-ever-shut-up titanic
self- absorption of the man! You stand there trying to look so deep when you’re nothing
but a solipsistic bully with your grandiose self-importance and lectures and arias and
let’s-look-at-the-fucking-canvas-for-another-few-weeks-let’s- not-fucking-paint-
let’s-just-look. And the pretension] Jesus Christ, the pretension! I can’t imagine any
other painter in the history of art ever tried so hard to be SIGNIFICANT!
KEN roams angrily.
KEN; You know, not everything has to be so goddamn IMPORTANT all the time! Not
every painting has to rip your guts out and expose your soul! Not everyone wants art
that actually HURTS! Sometimes you just want a fucking still life or landscape or soup
can or comic book! Which you might learn if you ever actually left your goddamn
hermetically-sealed submarine here with all the windows closed and no natural light -
BECAUSE NATURAL LIGHT ISN’T GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU!
ROTHKO lights a cigarette. He continues to stare at KEN.
KEN: But then nothingis ever good enough for you! Not even the people who buy your
pictures! Museums are nothing but mausoleums, galleries are run by pimps and
swindlers, and art collectors are nothing but shallow social-climbers. So who w good
enough to own your art?! Anyone?!
He stops, slows, realizing.
KEN: Or maybe the real question is: who’s good enough to even seeyour art?... Is it just
possible no oneis worthy to look at your paintings?... That’s it, isn’t it?... We have all
been ‘weighed in the balance and have been found ^ wanting
He approaches ROTHKO.
KEN: You say you spend your life in search of real ‘human beings/ people who can look
at your pictures with compassion. But in your heart you no longer believe those people
exist... So you lose faith... So you lose hope... So black swallows red.
Beat.
KEN is standing right before ROTHKO.
KEN: My friend, I don’t think you’d recognize a real human being if he were standing
right in front of you.
Pause.
ROTHKO's stem and uncompromising Old Testament glare makes KEN uneasy.
KEN’s resolve starts to crumble.
He moves away.
KEN: Never mind.
ROTHKO: Don’t give up so easy!
KEN: It’s not a game,
ROTHKO: You do make one salient point, though not the one you think.
KEN: Naturally.
ROTHKO: I do get depressed when I think how people are going to see my pictures. If
they’re going to be unkind... Selling a picture is like sending a blind child into a room
full of razor blades. It’s going to get hurt and it’s never been hurt before, it doesn’t
know what hurt is.
He looks around at the mural paintings.
ROTHKO: That’s why I’m looking to do something different with these ones. They’re
less vulnerable somehow, more robust, some hues from the earth even to give them
strength. And they’re not alone. They’re a series, they’ll always have each other for
companionship and protection... And most important they’re going into a place created
just for them. A place of reflection and safety...
KEN: A place of contemplation...
ROTHKO: Yes...
KEN: A place with no distractions...
ROTHKO: Yes...
KEN: A sacred space...
ROTHKO: Yes...
KEN: A chapel...
ROTHKO: Yes...
KEN: Like the Four Seasons restaurant.
ROTHKO stops.
KEN shakes his head.
KEN: At least Andy Warhol gets the joke.
ROTHKO: No, you don’t understand -
KEN: It’s a fancy restaurant in a big high rise owned by a rich corporation, what don’t I
understand?
ROTHKO: You don’t understand my intention -
KEN: Your intention is immaterial. Unless you’re going to stand there for the rest of
your life next to the pictures giving lectures - which you’d probably enjoy. The art has
to speak for itself, yes?
ROTHKO: Yes, but -
KEN: Just admit your hypocrisy: the High Priest of Modern Art is painting a wall in the
Temple of Consumption. You rail against commercialism in art, but pal, you’re taking the
money.
ROTHKO: I -
KEN: Sure, you can try to kid yourself you’re making a holy place of contemplative awe,
but in reality you’re just decorating another dining room for the super-rich and these
things - (He gestures to the murals.) - are nothing but the world’s most expensive
overmantles.
The words sting ROTHKO.
Beat.
ROTHKO: Why do you think I took this commission?
KEN: It appealed to your vanity.
ROTHKO: How so?
KEN: They could have gone to de Kooning, they went to you... It’s the flashiest mural
commission since the Sistine Chapel
ROTHKO: You would have turned it down?
KEN: In a second.
ROTHKO: Easy for you to say.
KEN: You know what it is? It’s your Oldsmobile convertible... Come on, you don’t need
the money. You don’t need the publicity. Why make yourself a hypocrite for the
Seagram Corporation?
ROTHKO: I didn’t enter into this capriciously, you know. I thought about it.
KEN: No kidding.
ROTHKO: And of course it appealed to my vanity, I’m a human being too. But still I
hesitated... The very same thoughts: is it corrupt? is it immoral? just feeding the whims
of the bourgeoisie? should I do it?... I’m still
thinking what the murals might look like when I take a trip to Europe. I happened to go
to Michelangelo’s Medici Library in Florence, You been there?
KEN: No.
ROTHKO: When you go, be sure to find the staircase, it’s hidden away. It’s a tiny
vestibule, like a vault it’s so cramped, but it goes up for three stories. Michelangelo
embraced this claustrophobia and created false doors and windows all the way up the
walls, rectangles in rich reds and browns... Well, that was it... He achieved just the kind
of feeling I was after for the Four Seasons. He makes the viewer feel he is trapped in a
room where all the doors and windows are bricked up, so all he can do is butt his head
against the wall forever.
He turns to KEN:
ROTHKO: I know that place is where the richest bastards in New York will come to feed
and show off... And I hope to ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who eats there.
KEN: You mention this to the Seagram’s people?
ROTHKO: It would be a compliment if they turned the murals down. They won’t.
KEN thinks about this.
Beat.
ROTHKO: You wanna drink?
KEN: (Surprised.} Sure.
ROTHKO pours two glasses of Scotch. He gives one to KEN.
Beat.
KEN: I don’t know...
ROTHKO: What?
ROTHKO: About what?
KEN: (Referring to the murals)Them - This malicious intent of yours. The old lion still
roaring, still trying to provoke, to be relevant, stick it to the bourgeoisie - it doesn’t
scan.
ROTHKO: Too romantic for you?
KEN: Too cruel to them. Your paintings aren’t weapons. You would never do that to
them, never reduce them like that. Maybe you started the commission thinking that way
but... then art happened... You couldn’t help it, that’s what you do. So now you’re stuck.
You’ve painted yourself into a corner, you should forgive the expression.
KEN moves away.
ROTHKO remains standing, unsure.
ROTHKO: No, you’re wrong.
KEN doesn’t respond.
ROTHKO:.Theirpower will transcend the setting. Working together, moving in rhythm,
whispering to each other, they will still create a place.
His words sound hollow.
ROTHKO: You think I’m kidding myself.
KEN doesn’t answer.
ROTHKO: You think it’s all an act of monumental self- delusion... Answer me.
ROTHKO stares at KEN.
ROTHKO: Answer me.
KEN: Yes.
ROTHKO continues to stare intensely at KEN.
Beat.
KEN: I’m fired, aren’t I?
ROTHKO: Fired?... This is the first time you’ve existed.
ROTHKO drains his Scotch, takes his hat and overcoat.
ROTHKO: See you tomorrow.
He goes.
A beat as KEN stands, a little mystified.
Then he moves forward to study the central painting.
He stands, glass of Scotch in one. hand, tilting his head, very Rothko- like.
SCENE FIVE
The room is almost in darkness.
Classical music plays loudly from the phonograph.
ROTHKO is slumped awkwardly on the floor, gazing up at the central picture.
There is a bottle of Scotch and a bucket of red paint next to him. He has been drinking
for a long time, but is not drunk. He can barely be seen in the gloom.
A long beat.
KEN enters.
KEN: (Over the music.) CAN I LOWER THE MUSIC?
ROTHKO doesn’t respond. KEN lowers the volume.
Then he turns on some more lights:
He stops ~
It is a shocking sight -
ROTHKO’s hands and arms are dripping with red.
It’s paint, but looks just like blood.
KEN thinks he has slashed his wrists.
KEN: Jesus Christ -!
He hurries to ROTHKO, panicked.
KEN: What did you do?!... (Reali&s it is paint)... Oh Christ, it’s paint!
ROTHKO: I was going to work.
KEN: Obviously... Jesus Christ... You want a towel or something? Maybe a paint brush?
KEN gets a bucket of water. He cleans ROTHKO’s hands.
Beat.
ROTHKO: I went there.
KEN: What?
ROTHKO: The Four Seasons.
KEN: Ah.
ROTHKO: After our ‘chat’ yesterday... I went there last night. For dinner.
KEN: Ah.
ROTHKO: It’s been open a couple weeks now, thought I should finally take a look...
KEN: And...?
ROTHKO pulls himself up.
He stands there, unsteady. Stares forward, lost in thought.
Beat.
ROTHKO shakes his head.
KEN: What do you see?
Beat,
ROTHKO: (Reliving it)You go in from 52nd... Then you go up some stairs to the
restaurant... You hear the room before you see it. Glasses clinking, silverware, voices,
hushed here but building as you get closer, it’s a desperate sound, like forced gaiety at
gunpoint... You go in, feel underdressed, feel fat, feel too goddamn Jewish for this place.
Give your name. Pretty hostess gives you a look that says: T know who you are and Pm
not impressed, we get millionaires in here, pal, for all I care you might as well be some
schmuck painting marionettes in Tijuana/ She snaps for the Maitre l D who snaps for the
captain who snaps for the head waiter who brings you through the crowd to your table,
heads turning, everyone looking at everyone else all the time, like predators — who are
you? whataxe you worth? do I need to fear you? do I need to acquire you?... Wine guy
comes, speaks French, you feel inadequate, you obviously don’t understand, he doesn’t
care. You embarrass yourself ordering something expensive to impress the wine guy.
He goes, unimpressed. You look around. Everyone else seems to belong here: men with
elegant silver hair and women with capes and gloves. Someone else in a uniform brings
you the menu. It’s things you never heard of: suckling pig under glass, quail eggs in
aspic. You are lost. And then... you can’t help it, you start hearing what people are
saying around you... Which is the worst of all...
ROTHKO pulls himself up.
He stands there, unsteady. It's disquieting: the dripping red paint really does look like
blood.
ROTHKO: The voices... It’s the chatter of monkeys and the barking of jackals. It’s not
human... And everyone’s clever and everyone’s laughing and everyone’s investing in
this or that and everyone’s on this charity board or that and everyone’s jetting off here
or there and no one looks at anything and no one thinks about anything and all they do
is chatter and bark and eat and the knives and forks click and clack and the words cut
and the teeth snap and snarl.
Beat.
He spreads his arms, taking in his murals:
ROTHKO: And in that place ~ there -will live my paintings for all time.
Beat
He finally turns to KEN:
ROTHKO: I wonder... Do you think they’ll ever forgive me? KEN: They’re only
paintings.
KEN stares at him.
It's like a challenge.
ROTHKO holds his gaze.
Pause.
And then ROTHKO seems to come to some decision.
He gets angry.
He nods.
He goes to the cluttered counter and finds the phone. He looks up.
ROTHKO: (Referring to the phonograph)Turn that off, would ya?
KEN turns off the record player as ROTHKO dials.
ROTHKO: (On phone) Mister Philip Johnson, please. This is Mark Rothko on the line...
(he waits, then) ... Philip, this is Rothko. Listen, I went to the restaurant last night and
lemme tell you, anyone who eats that kind of food for that kind of money in that kind of
joint will never look at a painting of mine. I’m sending the money back and I’m
keeping the pictures. No offence. This is how it goes. Good luck to ya, buddy.
He hangs up with a joyous finality.
KEN: [Proud)Now.. .now you are Mark Rothko.
ROTHKO: Only poorer.
KEN: Having money doesn’t make you wealthy.
ROTHKO: It helps though.
KEN: Well, this is a day for the books, we’ll have to ~ ROTHKO: You’re fired.
KEN stops.
KEN: What?
ROTHKO: You’re fired.
Beat.
KEN stares at him. He can’t believe it.
KEN: Why?
ROTHKO busies himself organising something.
ROTHKO: Doesn’t matter.
KEN: It does.
ROTHKO: Write down your address, I’ll send your final check. KEN: You owe me an
explanation.
ROTHKO: I don’t owe you anything ~
KEN pursues. ROTHKO tries to avoid him. The conflict builds: KEN: Two years and you
expect me to walk out, just like that? ROTHKO: You want a retirement party?
ROTHKO: None of your business.
KEN: I want a reason.
ROTHKO: Look, you’re too goddamn needy, all right? I don’t need it I don’t need your
need. Since you’re seven you’re looking for a home — well this isn’t it, and I’m not your
father. Your father’s dead, remember? Sorry, but that’s it.
KEN isn't deterred.
KEN: Come on, Doctor Freud. You can do better. Why?
ROTHKO: I told you.
KEN: Why?
ROTHKO: Because I don’t need an assistant - KEN: Bullshit.
ROTHKO: Because you talk too much - KEN: So do you.
ROTHKO: Because you have lousy taste - KEN: Bullshit
ROTHKO: Because I’m sick of you ~
KEN: Bullshit -
ROTHKO spins on him, points to the outside:
ROTHKO: Because your life is out there\
Beat.
ROTHKO: Listen, kid, you don’t need to spend any more time with me. You need to find
your contemporaries and make your own world, your own life... You need to get out
there now, into the thick of it, shake your fist at them, talk their ear off...
ROTHKO: Make them loot KEN is moved.
ROTHKO continues with quiet emotion.
ROTHKO: When I was your age, art was a lonely thing: no galleries, no collecting, no
critics, no money. We didn’t have mentors. We didn’t have parents. We were alone. But
it was a great time, because we had nothing to lose and a vision to gain.
Beat.
ROTHKO: Okay?
KEN: Okay.
Beat.
KEN: Thank you.
ROTHKO; Make something new.
KEN gathers his things, starts to go.
He stops at the door.
He turns back. He takes in the paintings and ROTHKO one last time.
ROTHKO: (Referring to the central painting.) What do you see? KEN looks at the
painting.
But then he looks at ROTHKO.
Beat.
KEN: Red.
Beat.
KEN goes to the phonograph and puts on a record.
Classical music plays.
KEN goes.
ROTHKO seems a little lost.
He moves to the central painting and stares at it Pause.
ROTHKO stands alone.
The End.
Thank You