Video: JC Santos, Bart Guingona Perform an Excerpt from RED

Manila, Philippines--Two of the Philippines’ finest actors, JC Santos and Bart Guingona, return to the stage via the Tony Award-winning two-hander play “Red,” written by John Logan.

The actors met with the press recently and performed an excerpt from the show.

Set in the 1950s, “Red” gives the audience a rare insider’s look at Mark Rothko, a prominent modern abstract artist—a qualifier he often detests, told from the POV of his young assistant, Ken.

The New York Times describes the play as “an intense and exciting two-character bio-drama, capturing the dynamic relationship between an artist and his creations.”

“I’m not interested in the relationship of color or form, or anything else. I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom,” Rothko once said.

“The fact that people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions...the people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when painting them. And if you say you are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point.”

Guingona plays the complicated Rothko. Guingona is a multi-awarded actor best known for his portrayals in “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” “The Crucible,” “The Maids,” and “Oedipus The King.”

As a stage director, he has directed plays for Actor’s Actors Inc., including “The Nerd,” “Les Parents Terribles,” “Taming of the Shrew,” and “Once on This Island.”

On the other hand, Dulaang UP alum JC Santos plays Ken. His theater credits include Zelim in “Orosman and Zafira,” Don Juan in “Adarna,” Abdallah in “Bilanggo ng Pag-ibig,” Jeryc Sans Reval in “Kung Paano Ako Naging Leading Lady,” Lam-Ang in “Lam-Ang,” and Roland in “Constellations.”

Both are also two of the most sought-after actors in TV and film. They currently star in ABS-CBN’s hit crime drama “Dirty Linen.”

Produced by the Necessary Theatre, “Red” runs for a limited 10 performances only at the PETA Theatre Center, in New Manila, Quezon City, for two weekends, June 9 to 11; June 16 to 18, 2023.

BWW Video: Kim Sancha