NEW
YORK, NY (AP).- “What do you see?” . . They
are the tantalizing
first words of “Red,” John Logan’s engrossing, often enthralling
new play
about art, an artist and the act of creation. Not
since “White. A blank page or
canvas. His favorite. So many possibilities.” — the final thoughts
from
the Stephen Sondheim-James Lapine musical “Sunday in the Park With
George”
— has a statement produced such a shiver of anticipation and
exhilaration. And like
“Sunday,” a musical about French painter Georges Seurat, “Red,”
which
opened Thursday at Broadway’s Golden Theatre, focuses on a famous
artist,
American abstract expressionist Mark Rothko. But unlike “Sunday”
and its
impoverished hero, “Red” depicts a financially successful man,
critically
lauded in his prime, yet growling about art, his fellow artists
and
life.