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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — During its limited 2010 Broadway run (star Alfred Molina had TV commitments in Los Angeles), John Logan’s “Red” won six Tonys-one for each week it played-including best play. FUSION Theatre Company is presenting this two-person dramatization of two years in the life of modern artist Mark Rothko in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

The Russian-born Rothko was an opinionated and introspective artist best known for his large paintings of (to quote the play) “energetic blocks of color,” “fuzzy rectangles” that “ebb and flow and shift, gently pulsating.” His best works achieve an inner luminosity and tension from his experimentation with color fields and the surface layering of shades and tints.

Artist and audience commune; so it is in theater. Logan’s play is set in 1958 when Rothko is working on a commission to create a connected series of paintings to be installed at the exclusive Four Seasons restaurant under construction as part of the Seagram Building on ritzy Park Avenue. Rothko hires a young artist, Ken, to run errands and help him with the mundane tasks of canvas construction and preparation.

If you go

WHAT: “Red” by John Logan

WHEN: Thursdays and Fridays 8 p.m.; Saturdays 2 and 8 p.m.; Sundays 6 p.m.; through Nov. 20 (Nov. 18-19 in Santa Fe)

WHERE: The Cell, 700 First Street NW

HOW MUCH: General public $30; seniors, students $25. Reservations 766-9412

Director Jacqueline Reid fashions a striking scene of the two men priming a canvas in powerful balletic pantomime. The men talk about art and artists and audience. At first Ken mostly listens, but he soon challenges his guru. The script is excellent, filled with historical information about modern American art and artists, as well as philosophical and emotional insights into this artist’s tortured process of creating his paintings.

The play avoids sounding pretentious when both characters admit the sentimentality of some of their arguments. And through its humor. By play’s end, Rothko has made an important decision about the Four Seasons, Ken is ready to go out into the contemporary art world and “make something new,” and the audience is energized.

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FUSION set designer Richard Hogle has captured the chaos of an artist’s studio – the table covered with pigments and turpentine, brushes and buckets; the stained floor; and Rothko-esque mural panels towering in the background. Brent Stevens uses his classical music knowledge to design the sound that always compliments the action.

Paul Blott is a raspy-voiced Rothko who convincingly treats his paintings as children to be nurtured and protected. On opening night I wished for more variety in Blott’s delivery, more insight into the inner torment of his character who tells us, “There’s tragedy in every brush stroke.”

Dimension should come with more performances. Charles Gamble’s work with Tricklock did not prepare me for his polished performance as Ken.

Gamble’s character changes over the play’s two years. Ken’s explosive response to his mentor is powerful. We believe that he saw red. So should you.

— This article appeared on page F5 of the Albuquerque Journal