Red: Return of the curmudgeon

Bart Guingona

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What's it like to play a character whose motivations are often inexplicable, whose actions are almost impossible to understand? 'Red' lead actor Bart Guingona reveals its challenges and its rewards

MANILA, Philippines – Curmudgeon: an ill-tempered, surly man. A killjoy.

Why would an audience spend hard-earned pesos to be in the company of unpleasant men like the brooding Hamlet, the miserly Harpagon (in Moliere’s The Miser), the misanthropic Alceste (Moliere’s The Misanthrope), the cantankerous Willie Clark (Neil Simon’s The Sunshine Boys)? What make these ill-tempered men so compulsively watchable?  

I got to thinking about this when, in a recent performance of Red in Cebu, a student asked during the open forum, “Ba’t ang sungit sungit niya?” refering to the character I was playing, the abstract expressionist Mark Rothko.  UNPREDICTABLE. The complex Mark Rothko has struck a chord with audiences, contributing to the play's success. Photo by Urich Calumpang for the Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, courtesy of Bart Guingona

He was right. Rothko, as written by John Logan (based partly on the biography by James E.B. Breslin) is an unforgiving, humorless curmudgeon who is almost neurotically protective of his vision and his art. He is by turns derisive, patronizing, and vicious to his assistant Ken. He is an intellectual snob, an elitist who parades his contempt like a badge of honor. One thing he is not is likeable. 

But these are the very qualities that make him fascinating to behold. Witnessing his fictional assistant Ken trapped in the studio with him holds the same fascination and suspense as watching a train wreck about to happen. You wonder, rather sadistically, whether the poor assistant will survive the barrage of cruelty while feeling really grateful that it’s happening to someone other than yourself. What makes the theater so thrilling is the possibility of vicariously living through the threat and intensity of the characters’ experiences without ever having to leave the safety of one’s seat.

Unassailably brilliant 

Fortunately, Red is so well constructed, as it reveals that curmudgeon is also unassailably brilliant.  Each negative trait is dramatically justified and the play’s eventual resolution is so human, so touching, that Rothko, the character and artist, is finally redeemed. 

For those who have yet to see Red, or encounter Mark Rothko, the play is a fictitious retelling of true events. In 1958, the artist was at the height of his fame, 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.  

RED. Bart Guingona brings artist Mark Rothko's life, and his unique ways of seeing, into the spotlight. Photo by Urich Calumpang for the Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, courtesy of Bart Guingona

In the course of an intermission-free hour and a half, Red explores the creative process, provoking us to consider 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.  

As an actor, I have always loved playing these surly, unpleasant men.  The challenge is to be able to reveal the emotional and motivational wellsprings of even the most opaque characters. It becomes a precious opportunity to open an audience’s mind to new perspectives, even if they are disagreeable.

(WATCH: Red, a play about highs and lows of being an artist)

Commitment to vision

Logan saw in Rothko an unswerving, uncompromising artist whose idealism was so elevated he chose to ensconce himself in what Ken would later describe as a “hermetically sealed submarine” of a studio. His unwavering commitment to his vision was as grand as it was irrational, and yet Logan brilliantly posits that the world would be lesser for the absence of minds like Rothko’s. 

I have to confess that I was initially doubtful about how receptive the Filipino audience would be as the play is a radical departure from the entertainment to which we are accustomed. A play of ideas with an unsympathetic character at its center? Who would pay to see that? And yet here we are, one year after we premiered the play, landing in the country’s premiere cultural institution, The Cultural Center of the Philippines – after having gathered awards, acclaim and more performances than we ever have imagined, I might un-humbly add. 

CONFLICT. Bart Guingona's Rothko unravels as the play unfolds, showing audiences insight into his unique mind. Photo by Urich Calumpang for the Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, courtesy of Bart Guingona

It helps, of course, that Ken is played by the brilliant, good-looking Joaquin Valdes who at least provides eye candy to those after such things.  That he is the stand-in with which an audience is meant to identify, should make the experience that much more satisfying. –Rappler.com

You can still catch Red at the CCP Tanghalang Huseng Batute (CCP Studio Theater) on February 7 and 8 at 8pm and February 8 and 9 at 3pm. Tickets are available at the CCP Box Office, tel. no. 832-3704, TicketWorld 891-9999 or through TNT 0917-8170463. Like TNT on Facebook/TheNecessaryTheatre, follow Twitter @AAITNT

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