ROTHKO

About the Book

ROTHKO

A bilingual English/German edition

Rothko, as depicted by Friesen, is a consumed artist, compelled by forces unseen and perhaps unknown; the artist is driven at a pace to create that defies both logic and sensibility. It, the play, reaches into its audience and provides it with an opportunity to contemplate the very essence of life itself, especially that life lived by an artist who knows his calling and strives to achieve it in spite of the constraints that seek to deter him.

This play is laced with cleverness, wit, and understanding. One leaves a reading or production of Rothko with a clear and honest appreciation for the trials and conflicts that harass the artist and attempt to deter him from his task.

Ken Robbins

Louisiana Tech University

About the Author

Lauren Friesen is the David M. French Distinguished Professor of Theatre at the University of Michigan Flint. He has also translated Hermann Sudermann’s comedy The Storm Komrade Sokrates. His other publications include a volume of poetry, plays and analytical essays on Hermann Sudermann, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Anna Deveare Smith and Tennessee Williams. In 1998 he received the Kennedy Center Gold Medallion for excellence in theatre. Magdalena Katt is the Senior Lecturer in English at Käthe Kollwitz Kolleg in Hagen, Germany. She collaborated with Lauren Friesen in translating Hermann Sudermann’s comedy and she has also translated Friesen’s two act play Rothko. Her home city, Hagen, was also Carlo Ross’s home and she has personal familiarity with many of the details in this novel.