Tucked into downtown Laredo at 819 Iturbide street, RED on Iturbide feels like an underground gem, a location you simply stumble upon with a curious anticipation rather than a neatly packaged event one simply attends. It is this sense of secrecy the building exudes that made it especially fitting to host the production of John Logan’s Red, a play that invites its audience to bear witness to the volatile intimacy of abstract painter Mark Rothko’s studio.
The venue works because it feels like somewhere we should not be. With no visible windows and no easy sense of exit, the audience is enclosed within the same charged atmosphere as Rothko (Joe Flores) and his assistant, Ken (Pepe Treviño).
At such close range, the audience becomes part of the arguments, ego, doubt, and revelation. Despite this physical intimacy, the mental and emotional distance we keep from our actors creates a necessary friction that becomes the basis of the play: are we the artists privy to the sacred and unstable creative process that Rothko is speaking to, or are we the voyeuristic consumers that he is talking about? We are no longer just audience members being entertained; we, by proxy, become core contributors to the tensions mounting within the play, driving the plot forward.
The building itself, its aged wood, exposed brick, props that feel suspended in another era, reinforces the sensation of being stuck in time, mirroring Rothko’s own resistance to a rapidly commodifying art world. Yet, the outside refuses to disappear. Throughout the performance, the external noise of downtown life seeps inward: car stereos blasting, pedestrians shuffling past mid-conversation, the distant blare of train horns, all become unintentional additions to the play.
Despite the production’s best efforts to keep us locked in to a certain space and time, we cannot ignore what is happening outside the walls we willingly step into. No matter how fiercely Rothko rants about what art should remain, no matter how tightly he attempts to seal himself inside his philosophy, the world persists beyond his studio walls. Society moves forward, life continues, and the artist cannot fully remove himself from it.
At its core, Red is not a narrative that is solely about painting, but one about reciprocity. Rothko attempts to awaken the artist in Ken, while Ken’s presence forces Rothko to confront his own humanity.
Their dynamic reflects the much alluded to Nietzschean tragedy between Apollo and Dionysus, that tension between order and ecstasy, intellect and instinct, revealing to us that the perfect balance between the two is ultimately unattainable — one is always either too human or too artist. But during moments of genuine exchange, when both men listen rather than posture, something closer to equilibrium emerges; they’ve inched closer to the fulcrum point, together, than they ever would have done on their own.
Like Rothko’s canvases, the production suggests that true meaning is not found in isolation or consumption, but in community and engagement. In this sealed yet permeable space on Iturbide, art and theater become less about mastery and more about witness.
What do we see when standing before one another, suspended between chaos and control, daring to engage?
(Xiomarra Milann is a borderland storyteller, multidisciplinary artist, activist, and educator whose roots lay in Laredo, TX. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UTEP, and her writing has been published in Sybil Journal, Querencia Press, and Acentos Review, among others. She has been the recipient of fellowships with MoveTexas, the Rowan Foundation, and The Heart of It. She was nominated for Sundress Press’ Best of Net 2025, a finalist for the Jack McCarthy Book Prize in 2024, shortlisted for the 2024 Peach Pit Grant, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2023. Follow her journey on Instagram @90strashpop.)
