by Amrita Ramanan, Literary Manager
During the second scene of Red, Mark Rothko engages his assistant Ken in a discussion about vitality and fluidity of his paintings. As the two men grapple with the temporal nature of color - how it moves, fluxes, pulses and changes - Ken references Rothko's paintings in conjunction with the dim lighting of his studio: "That's why you keep the lights so low....To help the illusion. Like a magician. Like a play. To keep it mysterious, to let the pictures pulsate. Turn on bright lights and the stage effect is ruined – suddenly it’s nothing but a bare stage with a bunch of fake walls."
Since its inception, theatre has thrived on illusion. As audience members, we sit in our seats 
and are immediately enveloped into the world we witness on stage. From the living room of George and Martha to Rothko's studio, we temporarily accept the reality of these environments despite our cognition of them as fictionalized representations constructed by a set designer and crew. We cry when Juliet dies with her beloved and cheer when Wiletta stands up to Al Manners. We gasp when an angel crashes through the ceiling or suspend our disbelief when Nate instantly transforms into Robert Cecil in front of our very eyes. The actors and playwrights aide the illusion, portraying characters we believe in and writing stories we relate to. Once the show concludes and the lights are turned off (with exception of the ghost light, of course), we depart from this special world we lived in for two or three hours and re-enter our everyday lives.
Here at Arena, we've been grappling with this notion of illusion and how it speaks literally and figuratively to two of our current productions - Elephant Room and Red. In Elephant Room, illusion is created through the duality of magic and theatrical magic as three magicians journey through a hugely entertaining and absurd magic show. The elusive lives of these magicians, as well as their ability to conjure their illusions and tricks on stage, remains a mysterious joyride from start to finish. In Red, illusion is addressed through Rothko's art and further examined in playwright John Logan's dialogue between Rothko and Ken. As Ken states, the emotional intensity of Rothko's paintings is fueled by his ability to maintain the "stage effect," to humanize them from the canvas as living, breathing entities that connect with the viewer and evoke a multitude of feelings and memories. Here, Logan pays tribute to the illusion created by both the paintings and his play.
Though the illusion may literally end once the curtain goes down and we exit the theater, more importantly, it lives with us if it is done well. We reflect on George and Martha as a professor and wife dwelling in their New England college borough and Romeo and Juliet's star-crossed affair as a lesson in the universal power of love. We don't care if what we experienced was "real," as long as it was an experience to remember. It's the magic of the theater and the artistic magicians who create it - every night when the house lights are dimmed.
