Best Of Tucson®

Best Intellectually Colorful Play

Red

A lot of us love to talk about art. Arizona Theatre Company gave us exactly what we crave with the stellar production of John Logan's Red. Featuring terrific performances by Denis Arndt as famed artist Mark Rothko, and Connor Toms as his student assistant, it is a quiet play with loud ideas: art's often curious place in culture; both its seriousness and its sometimes inflated importance; the tentative, if not downright hostile, reception it often receives by the public; the passion of the artist, and his commitment to creation even in the presence of self-doubt, often disguised by an inflated ego. And, finally: What constitutes art? Both intellectually stimulating and at times heart-wrenching, ATC had us seeing "red"—and in just the right shades. We're still talking.