Playwright: John Logan. At: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn St. Phone: 312-443-3800;$25-$84. Runs through: Oct. 30
"Why is it so difficult to capture artists on stage?" asks a note in the Goodman's playbill. The answer should be obvious: artists at workbe they painters, sculptors, or writers (musicians less so)don't make for lively outside observation. Even the participants, themselves, sometimes grow bored with their solitude, relieving the introspective silence with background music and frequent rest breaks. John Logan depicts the compositional process with an eye to visual stimulus, but what really imposes urgency on the proceedings is our knowledge that one of its characters will commit real-life suicide soon after the dramatic narrative ends.
Oh, yes, the prospect of imminent death does focus the mind. If we didn't know that the larger-than-life personality dominating the action as he dominates his young assistant was Mark Rothko, one of the foremost representatives of the abstract expressionist movement of the late 20th century, we could be left with just another teacher-pupil/father-son homily (cf. Old Wicked Songs). Certainly, the contentious banter between the master and his hired help as they go about the tasks associated with their current projecta series of murals commissioned to decorate a fashionable Manhattan restaurantencompass the topics associated with this dynamic: the old vs. the new, selfless aestheticism vs. commercial compromise, Apollonian contemplation vs. Dionysic volatility, God vs. Mammon.
For playgoers unaware of the price paid by Rothko toward the preservation of his legacy, there is a certain satisfaction to be found in simply watching these craftsmen at work. The magnitude of the monuments under way lend their mission an undeniable grandeur, and the intensity they bring to their industryvividly conveyed during a scene where a snippet of agitato opera spurs them on as they quickly prime-coat a canvascommands our attention. Robert Falls' direction of his two actors captures the ebb and flow of the verité scenario unfolding with deceptively prosaic leisureliness.
The myth of creators coming to worship their own creations is a literary convention dating from antiquity, and in any other vie de bohéme romance, Rothko's likening his paintings to children sent out into the world to wander among strangers would come off as sentimental affectation, and his misanthropic rejection of the mercurial pop artists as upstart newcomers dismissed as dyspeptic crankiness, lovableor not. Logan, however, renders his protagonist a hero well past the flush of youth, but still steadfast of ethical creed, whatever the sacrifice. "What do you see?" he challenges us. What's your answer?