It’s hard to know how best to praise Gremlin Theatre’s production of John Logan’s play RED, because it’s a winner from all angles. I could start by saying go for the performances from the two actors, Pearce Bunting and Ben Shaw, because they’re great. I could start by saying go for the direction by Ellen Fenster-Gharib, because she handles a tricky balancing act brilliantly. I could start by saying go for the script by Logan, which won the Tony Award for Best Play back in 2010, and I can totally see why (even though it had some really stiff competition that year, all of which I’ve seen productions of before, so RED’s been taking a while to catch up with me - my pick probably would have been Sarah Ruhl’s “In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)” but Donald Marguiles’ “Time Stands Still” is an equally impressive option, and though Geoffrey Nauffts’ “Next Fall” drives me crazy, even I have to admit it has its moments).
“I am here to stop your heart.”
RED is John Logan’s fictionalized version of the story behind artist Mark Rothko (Pearce Bunting)’s commission to create a series of murals to decorate the famed Four Seasons restaurant in the new Seagram Building on Park Avenue in New York back in the late 1950s. Logan creates an eager new assistant for Rothko, named Ken (Ben Shaw), who is partly an audience surrogate bringing us into the world of Rothko’s painting studio, giving Rothko a handy excuse (and captive audience of one) to expound on his process and the world in general. Since plays tend to revolve around conflict, you won’t be surprised to hear that the execution of the sprawling art project doesn’t exactly go as planned, or that Ken’s patience as an awestruck apprentice does eventually reach its limit.
“Do you think they’ll ever forgive me?”
“They’re just paintings.”
RED is that rare bird, a two-person play that’s actually good. Logan nimbly avoids the downfall of many a two-person play, where the hand of the author is all too evident, trying desperately to keep all other potential characters in the world off stage in a way that doesn’t quite make sense, and so all the seams are showing. Here, in RED, you understand why these are the only two people that exist in this room. The play, and this production, also do a great job of creating the sense of an outside world we never see. There is life beyond that offstage door we hear slam shut, announcing someone’s arrival. We sense people on the other end of the phone calls made on the art studio’s yellow, paint-spattered (rotary) phone mounted on a pole by the hot plate where Rothko and Ken stir up pigment and eggs to create just the right shades of color. Rothko conjures a society full of artists, old and new, some of whom he respects or pities, some of whom he has no patience for. Even if this wasn’t based on a real person and things that actually happened, I’d still believe the storytellers because of how well the world is realized.
“This moment right now, and a little bit tomorrow.”
Pearce Bunting was a key part of the ensemble of the best play I saw last year (and the best play that’s been on the Guthrie Theater stage in ages), "Primary Trust," so I wasn’t at all surprised by how great he is in the role of the artist Mark Rothko. Rothko can often be an insufferable son of a bitch, and he’s a terrible employer (pity poor Ken), but Bunting always manages to give him just enough of a sliver of humanity and vulnerability to keep us from declaring him a complete monster. Rothko never pretends to be any nicer than he is, so it’s not as if he didn’t warn Ken, and the audience, from the moment the play starts that he’s going to be difficult to like. Art about artists is hard to pull off, but here the playwright and the actor make the notion of art specific to this man’s personality. Rothko’s artistic mission and sense of self are inseparable. So his art having meaning and value and staying power is vitally important to him as a person. That’s why he’s so intense and unforgiving - because he knows the art world is even more unforgiving, and he’s struggling to stay one step ahead of becoming irrelevant.
“When the blood dried, it got darker on the carpet.”
Since I still vividly remember the experience of watching Theatre Coup d’Etat’s "The Rogue Prince" back in 2019 and Orchard Theater Collective’s "Saint Joan" in 2020 (right before the pandemic shut everything down), I came to RED already clued in to Ben Shaw’s skills as both an actor (Prince) and director (Joan). The idea of Shaw in a two-person show with Bunting promised to be delightful, and Shaw’s take on Ken did not disappoint. Ken brings the outside world (and the changing times) into Rothko’s sanctuary, which is one of the reasons Rothko can get a bit prickly around his assistant. Ken also has artistic ambitions (and secrets) of his own, of course, but this is no tired “the student becomes the master” plotline. The play, the actors, and the director are all a lot subtler and cleverer than that. Sarah Bauer’s costumes for Ken help us to track the passage of time through his evolution and level of comfort in the studio and what clothes he chooses to work in.
“Sending a blind child into a room full of razor blades.”
Bauer’s additional work on props - from that rotary phone to Rothko’s phonograph and vinyl record collection and all those painting supplies - gives RED its grounding in a previous century and helps flesh out the details of Carl Schoenborn’s wonderfully cluttered and lived-in art studio set. (And because apparently she doesn’t have enough to do on this production, Bauer is also the stage manager - phew!) Schoenborn also works his magic on the lights (I should expect this of his work by now, of course). There are uses of light and shadow both everyday (in the discussion of finding the right light in which to view a painting) and otherworldly (the play’s highly saturated and colorful final moments). Given how important music is to Rothko’s artistic process, Aaron Newman’s work on sound design is just as integral to this production.
“I was totally saturated. It swallowed me.”
Ellen Fenster-Gharib’s work as director is key to making this whole evening cohere together. All these talents need someone to look at the bigger picture and guide them and Fenster-Gharib serves this role perfectly. As my theatergoing companion pointed out, the director isn’t afraid to let the actors just be still or exist in moments of silence, or trust that even with their back to one side of the three-sided thrust house, an actor will be conveying what’s going on in the scene. Fenster-Gharib knows she’s cast two actors who can act just as (or even more) effectively when turned away from an audience than a great many actors do when you can see their full faces. Just like the paintings Rothko seeks to create, Bunting and Shaw are in motion (and full of e-motion) the more you watch them, even when they’re standing or sitting still.
“Most of painting is thinking. 10 percent is putting paint on canvas. The rest is waiting.”
And there’s just something really thrilling about the theatricality built into this production of RED, where the two actors staring out through the invisible fourth wall at each side of the audience are looking intently at paintings we never see. Yet in the faces of these two actors, we can sense what those paintings are doing to the viewer. Also, the details of the work of creating art - sanding down the frame for an enormous canvas, stapling down the corners and sides of yet another large canvas, then hanging it up on a rolling wall and watching the two artists paint a base coat of red on that canvas, all in time to a piece of classical music that becomes by turns a competition and a dance. It’s the kind of experience only a live performance can offer. RED offers these kind of moments in scene after scene throughout the evening.
If you’re looking for a solid, well-executed piece of theater from top to bottom, RED at Gremlin is your ticket.
Gremlin Theatre’s production of John Logan’s play RED runs through Sunday, March 1, 2026 in their space at 550 Vandalia Street, Suite 177, St. Paul, MN 55114. Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30pm, Sundays at 3pm. Tickets are available through their website.
5 stars - Very Highly Recommended
(Photo (l to r): Pearce Bunting as Rothko and Ben Shaw as Ken in RED; photography by Allysa Kristine Photography)
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