Red theme abstract, like subject’s work

You might not recognize the name, but if you’ve seen modern art from the last century, you’ve seen Mark Rothko’s work. Big canvases. Solid colors over other solid colors.

You might not like them, but you can’t help but look.

Red takes factual events in Rothko’s career - he was given a $35,000 commission to produce paintings for the exclusive Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan, began the paintings, then rejected the commission - and imagines what happened to make the painter change his mind.

Playwright John Logan sets the 90-minute play entirely in Rothko’s studio, with a fictitious young assistant, Ken, opposite the painter to do his grunt work, and also to absorb and then push back against Rothko’s assertions about the meaning of a painting and the relative worth of his contemporaries.

A pivotal question, asked at three points in the play, is “What do you see?” Upon entering the theater, patrons will see actor Joseph Graves, already in character as Rothko, shifting in a paint-spattered chair onstage as he studies his paintings (which hang at the mind’s eye at the edge of the stage, between actors and audience).

Any play with only two characters has a growing,fascinating and evolving tension, and that’s true here in the counterpoint between Graves and Chris Wendelken as Ken. A high point comes at exactly the midpoint, when they exuberantly prime a canvas together. It’s also the first time the audience actually gets to see a canvas with the characters.

As with viewing an abstract painting, some of the play’s themes will be in the eye of the playgoer.

Some will see father-son undertones. Anyone who makes art will be familiar with questions of vocation versus commercialism. Those with a philosophical bent will hear familiar existential questions.

But all viewers are likely to see Graves in a masterful performance, and to appreciate Wendelken’s work in taking Ken from a guy who can barely squeak a word out to someone who can hold his own against the famous painter’s overlarge personality.

The play, which won six Tony awards in 2010 (including Best Play), runs through Nov. 10, with performances at 7 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 2 p.m. Sunday matinees. For more information, call (501) 378-0405 or visit tickets. therep.org.