Colin Friels is very keen to be back in Brisbane for the April season of Red, a play that snapshots an intriguing period of American artist Mark Rothko's life in the late '50s.
“They said 'oh, look, they want to do it in Queensland', so I said 'Beauty, I'll do it!'” says Friels. “I've found Brisbane audiences the most receptive audiences of any of the cities. They're more generous. Sydney it's sort of like 'oh, yeah? Are you fashionable enough for me to even look at?' Melbourne, they're so pleased with themselves anyway, you know? Brisbane, what I've found [is] there's just more generosity there.”
Not that the play did poorly in Melbourne. In fact, says Friels, it booked out. “I had people ringing me up that I didn't even know saying 'look, we can't get any tickets to Red'. So that was really gratifying.” The show explores the two years Rothko spent producing a series of paintings in a lucrative deal with the Four Seasons restaurant in New York. “It's a particular time, when he was painting the Seagram paintings for the restaurant, so the play's very specific about that and very self-explanatory.”
The motivation for Rothko's decision to renege on the agreement that would have seen him rich was largely a mystery at the time. Red is writer John Logan's (Skyfall, Gladiator) attempt to bring clarity to Rothko's thinking. “I think the play completely describes why he accepted it [in the first place], and why he rejected it,” says Friels. “He gave back the money, and kept the paintings for himself.”
Asked to be involved by Melbourne Theatre Company's then-artistic director Robyn Niven, Friels immediately saw the potential for Red to be a wonderful play, but only with the right director on board. “I asked her if Alkinos [Tsilimidos—his director in Tom White] could direct it. He'd never done a play before [but] I couldn't think of anyone who'd do it better. I knew that if Al does the play, he'll take the play seriously. He's not interested in getting attention himself. He's very real, you know, there's no bullshit in him. So he wanted to get the truth of the play.
“He just serves the play. And also he's got a beautiful sensibility, and quintessentially, if the two actors on stage are boring or not real, the audience is going to go to sleep very quickly. And he actually likes actors,” Friels laughs. “To let actors do what they have to do, and not to try and control them, but to work with them, is what's crucial.”
Friels is looking forward to bringing his passion for theatre to Brisbane audiences. “Red is a very accessible play,” he says. “I'm trying to find a way to get to audiences without the academia behind it, and all the post-modern crap that goes with it. Just try and connect with audiences. The audience is absolutely crucial. It's got to move you. You've got to connect with it emotionally. It's about human beings, for Christ's sake. You can't tell me that an audience aren't supposed to dig it.”
His next project will see him in Sydney working on Moving Parts, a small commercial production in which he again works with theatre newbies. “It's just a two-hander, very intimate, very real sort of piece, and again with people that have never done theatre, so I'm looking forward to that.”
