Rothko

By Lauren Friesen

ROTHKO

A bilingual English/German edition

Rothko, as depicted by Friesen, is a consumed artist, compelled by forces unseen and perhaps unknown; the artist is driven at a pace to create that defies both logic and sensibility. It, the play, reaches into its audience and provides it with an opportunity to contemplate the very essence of life itself, especially that life lived by an artist who knows his calling and strives to achieve it in spite of the constraints that seek to deter him.

This play is laced with cleverness, wit, and understanding. One leaves a reading or production of Rothko with a clear and honest appreciation for the trials and conflicts that harass the artist and attempt to deter him from his task.

Ken Robbins

Louisiana Tech University

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465382801

Lauren Friesen

Lauren Friesen is the David M. French Distinguished Professor of Theatre at the University of Michigan Flint. He has also translated Hermann Sudermann’s comedy The Storm Komrade Sokrates. His other publications include a volume of poetry, plays and analytical essays on Hermann Sudermann, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Anna Deveare Smith and Tennessee Williams. In 1998 he received the Kennedy Center Gold Medallion for excellence in theatre. Magdalena Katt is the Senior Lecturer in English at Käthe Kollwitz Kolleg in Hagen, Germany. She collaborated with Lauren Friesen in translating Hermann Sudermann’s comedy and she has also translated Friesen’s two act play Rothko. Her home city, Hagen, was also Carlo Ross’s home and she has personal familiarity with many of the details in this novel.

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 by Lauren Friesen.

Library of Congress Control Number:          2011918750

ISBN:                      Hardcover                      978-1-4653-8279-5

                                 Softcover                      978-1-4653-8278-8

                                 Ebook                            978-1-4653-8280-1

All rights reserved. This play is the sole property of the author and the translator for German text and fully protected by copyright. It may not be acted, adapted, filmed, taped or translated by professionals or amateurs without written consent. Radio, television and other media broadcasts are likewise circumscribed. The author holds all rights to this work.

The author’s contact address is [e-mail].

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Preface

Introduction

ACT I

ACT II

ROTHKO

Vorwort

Akt I

Akt II

Preface

I first encountered a Rothko painting in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It stopped me in mid-thought; demanded my attention. Thus began an intermittent journey to examine the scope of his works and the artist who created them. Because I could not ignore that chance meeting, I slowly realized that Rothko and his colors would claim a greater hold on me as time passed. His experiments with form and color, subtlety and directness, emotional depth and abstraction shaped my own aesthetic.

Eventually, all those experiences converged to form this play on an artist with humble origins who is now considered a definitive voice in Abstract Expressionism. That trajectory, from immigrant subgroup to the mainstream of American art, did not occur without a struggle. Rothko’s paintings achieved greater intensity as time progressed and he became ever more resolute in exploring his method. The burden of capturing his life in dramatic form became a daunting challenge. How can a play which runs two hours and a few seconds capture with any integrity a search for truth that spanned a lifetime? Maybe it cannot be done and yet, I reasoned, silence on my part in the face of such gravitas would be the greater loss.

Rothko would never been completed without the careful assistance of many colleagues, associates, friends and family members. First of all, a great thank you for the periodicals that published and the galleries and museums that exhibited Rothkos long before he was recognized as one of the standard bearers of American painting. Secondly, a thank you is also due to those who now have assembled exhibits of his works. These include the Tate of London, the National Gallery of Washington, DC, the Sheldon Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska and the already mentioned MOMA. John and Dominique de Menil deserve special mention for their courageous decision to commission Rothko to create the black on black series that line the walls of an inter-faith chapel in Houston, Texas. These final paintings are now viewed as Rothko’s magnum opus. The completion of these works is largely due to the de Menil’s diligence and encouragement as he advanced his aesthetic.

The initial idea for this play emerged in a discussion with the late Doug Adams, a Rothko scholar. He had a unique ability to articulate central motifs in modern American art. Professor Adams’s emphasis on the connection between the expressive process and the spiritual in modern art were instrumental in shaping my views of Rothko.

A special thank you to my playwriting professor at the University of California-Berkeley, the late Professor Marvin Rosenberg who read the earlier drafts, made numerous suggestions and introduced me to Rothko’s biographer James E. B. Breslin.¹ Professor Breslin’s detailed and authoritative study provides many insights into Rothko’s life and work and rises above many other biographical studies. His work was published while I was working on the second draft of this play and Professor Breslin shared many insights he gained from his research including additional anecdotes which do not appear in his weighty tome. Despite all that encouragement, the play languished in a computer file for nearly a decade.

Eventually this inactive draft received a new opportunity when Gary Garrison organized a staged reading at a playwriting workshop at New York University. The workshop revealed several weaknesses and I began to revise with abandon—cutting long sections and altering others. Characters were added and an exact internal chronology was dropped in favor of creating a memory play with a fluid time sequence. That revision was staged in Flint, Michigan in 2007 by Vertigo Theatrics.

It is with deep gratitude that I recognize Ted Valley and his wife Jacque for their eagerness to stage Rothko with their company. Mr. Valley played the lead role and influenced many aspects of the production. His skills as a company manager deserve special recognition. D. J. Trela played Bernie with aplomb while giving life to the complicated twists and turns that character requires. Laura Friesen intuitively understood the role of Mell, Rothko’s wife, capturing her multiple nuances and character shifts. The production also benefited from the skills of the assistant director Rhonda Groves Young, the set designer Stephen Landon and the costumer Seunghye Cho. Their artistic abilities and dedication to the craft of theatre elevated the quality of the production.

Magdalena Katt worked arduously on translating Rothko from English to German. Her ability to capture the American idiom and render it into meaningful conversational German is evident throughout the play. Ms. Katt captured the significance of the characters, the dramatic tension of the work and cultural nuances we often associate with becoming or being American. We exchanged many emails through the years and the German text in this volume is the final product. A special thank you goes to Sandra Spenner for her diligence in proof-reading the German text. Ann Neiman did an excellent job in proof-reading the English version by locating many typos. Finally, thanks also to Jan Worth for her helpful comments. All remaining textual problems are the responsibility of the author.

Finally, I am grateful to my family who have encouraged these ventures and expanded my vision. My wife Janet has added valuable insights into the nature of art and especially modern art. Our children, their spouses and our grandchildren bring daily joys that cannot be measured. My ventures have been made possible by this circle of love and I dedicate these pages to them.

May you, the reader or the viewer of this play, have a meaningful journey as Rothko’s life and work unfolds before you.

Lauren Friesen

Flint, Michigan

Introduction

In Rothko, Lauren Friesen has created a drama that celebrates art by focusing on one of the modern era’s greatest contributors to the artistic scene, Mark Rothko.

Not only is the play about art, it is art. Friesen has taken his subject in hand and created a work for the stage that accomplishes two very important goals: it instructs and it entertains.

Instruction: Rothko, as depicted by Friesen, is a consumed artist, compelled by forces unseen and perhaps unknown; the artist is driven at a pace to create that defies both logic and sensibility. It, the play, reaches into its audience and provides it with an opportunity to contemplate the very essence of life itself, especially that life lived by an artist who knows his calling and strives to achieve it in spite of the constraints that seek to deter him.

Entertainment: this play is laced with cleverness, wit, and understanding. Catharsis, one of the manifestations of true dramatic art and one that is a clear possibility inside Friesen’s drama, can be entertaining as well as instructive. One leaves a reading or production of Rothko with a clear and honest appreciation for the trials and conflicts that harass the artist and attempt to deter him from his task. But above all, in this remarkable play, there is humor that is both charming (the expected) and the less so (the surprising). Friesen as demonstrated in his text is both the artisan, he who can capture the essence of life through style and management of the materials of art, and the artist, he who understands it.

Rothko works for me as a play and as a history lesson. I feel that I have come to know, through reading Lauren Friesen’s drama, this remarkable creative spirit, Mark Rothko. For this understanding, I thank Friesen’s clear creation of character. He has peopled the work with three distinctive individuals, each worthy of our time and empathy. Each possesses foibles and human kindness. Each will prove a challenge for future actors. What more could an audience ask of the playwright?

As a read, Rothko is one thing, and a most successful thing at that, but it deserves to be seen and heard. In production, this play has and will again come to life and audiences will leave the theatre a bit more cognizant of the world of art. Until then, reader, treasure this text within the theatres of your imaginations.

Kenneth Robbins

Louisiana Tech University

CAST

Mark Rothko, painter, Rothko was a willful, irascible, argumentative force who was at the center of the movement called American Abstract Expressionism. He was noted for his sardonic wit, power of concentration and single-mindedness.

Mary Alice Mell Rothko. Rothko’s wife. Mell Rothko was 20 years younger than her husband and the mother of their two children. Before marrying Rothko she was a successful illustrator with a major publishing firm in New York City.

Bernard Bernie Reis, lawyer and financial manager. A suave and sophisticated lawyer who handled financial accounts and legal matters for a number of artists, politicians and real estate investors. An early advocate for abstract expressionist artists.

SET

The Rothko studio in New York. Large room filled with canvases and painting supplies of various sizes. Rothko frequently made his own paints by pulverizing pigments with a mortar and pestle and mixes them with oils in one-gallon cans. The cans are stored on shelves and many also serve as his filing system. The room is dark and gritty with paint spatters everywhere and a large skylight above the center. The studio has three doors. On the upstage wall, a door leads to hallway and entrance. Stage right door leads to Mell’s apartment. Stage left, door to Rothko’s apartment. Now and then Bernie also appears in places outside of the set, downstage right—as though he is a figure looming over the reality of the studio. There is a large paint-smeared coffee urn on one table.

TIME

A memory play. During Rothko’s final years, he recalls crucial incidents from his personal and artistic journey.

PREMIERE PRODUCTION

April