The Play RED at 222 Doesn't Compare 2 Alfred Molina/Eddie Redmayne's RED on B'wy

John Logan's play is about the painter Mark Rothko. More specifically, it pertains to a specific period in Rothko's life right after Phillip Johnson commissioned him to create 4 mural paintings for the 4 Seasons restaurant in the soon to open Seagram's building in mid-town Manhattan. While it's unfair to compare a local theatrical production to the Broadway show which earned Best Actor Awards for both its stars, Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne as well as the Tony for Best Play for Logan (a 3 time Acad. Award wining screenwriter) it behooves me not to point out the 222's too short comings.  RED, a 1 ACT, 2 ACTOR play is thought provoking, arousing with more than a bit of blow-hard bantering on the meaning of art. Having seen Molina and Redmayne on Broadway more than a decade ago I was eager to see another staging at our local theater in Healdsburg, CA. The casting of Robert Parsons as Mark Rothko and Tasi Alabaster as Ken, Rothko's assistant is like pitting David v. Goliath, but it seems its shortcomings resulted from the directorial choices made director Amy Kossow. She presented different dilemmas which painted this production into a corner; lacking poignancy, power and ABSTRACT ideas. Molino's portrayal showed an artist with angst as he battled with the quandary of insuring his legacy as a great artist. The fictitious pairing of characters was fodder for inventing an inner dialogue of Rothko as he excoriates the commercialization of art alongside his own hypocritical fears of being a sell-out. Ken CAN stand for Rothko's inner turmoil and psyche. Molina gave Rothko's persona multiple shades of a grandiose master and intellect alongside Rembrandt and Vasquez to an insufferable, self-loathing seeker of fame and fortune. Redmayne's Ken started out wanting to please Rothko without appearing as an abject, whipping-boy. In addition to getting inside Rothko's mind, Molina and Redmayne performed a skillful top-dog/bottom-dog metamorphisis wherein Ken became more self-assured as Rothko yielded in submission. Furthermore, director Kossow chose to paint Rothko as a flat character being mainly cruel and condescending, rendering him unsympathetic. Kossow's depiction of Ken was painted as a simplistic underling hoping to please and who failed challenge Rothko's laments "to be audacious, alive and in constant flux." RED at the 222 is an entertaining play thanks to Logan's crafty writing but it didn't absorb  the many different layers afforded it to make the play POP as art.  RED lost its vibrancy in this translation.