![]() ![]() For the price of 10 cents, or 35 cents for reserved seats, the people of Dundas could see movie stars such as Mary Pickford and John Barrymore on the large screen. The hall gained recognition as the home of the Dundas Choral Society and for its Gilbert and Sullivan performances by members of local Dundas churches. If needed, chairs could be stored under the stage for dances and events.” ![]() Olive Newcombe, former curator of the Dundas Museum and Archives, recalled the significance and beauty of the hall: “It was a beautiful place with long moss-green curtains. Aspiring politicians and events featuring religious speakers were also common at the Music Hall. One of the best-known early performers was the 77th Regiment Orchestra who provided many pleasant evenings of musical enjoyment. While in operation, the Music Hall held many types of entertainment ranging from plays to movies to charity balls, concerts and dances. A successful business career allowed for this to become a reality as his manufacturing company, the Valley City Seating Co., was a well-established local firm employing many people. Pennington had long been a fan of music and dance, and worked diligently to build this type of music and assembly hall for the community. All local dignitaries were present and praised Pennington for building, at his own expense, a most impressive hall. Pennington opened the hall at 98-102 King Street with a gala ceremony. From 1911 until the late 1940s aspiring local talent performed on the Music Hall stage entertaining all ages and filling the hall with hometown crowds. The Dundas Little Theatre on Market Street beside the Dundas Arena has been the site of many theatrical performances.įor the people of the valley town, the Music Hall building at King and Foundry streets was once the heart of a thriving arts community approximately 100 years ago. We look at the Dundas Valley School of Art at Hatt and Ogilvie streets, and the Carnegie Gallery at King and Ogilvie streets as local centres of art. Sunday, Sept.Dundas has for many years taken great pride in its arts community. There is a slightly different and quite satisfying ending to the play.ħ:25 p.m. In real life, Rothko broke his agreement and never delivered the paintings. Throughout the play, the two look at and talk about paintings the audience can’t see, but finally they hang up a blank canvas and the two of them together prime it with bright red paint in choreographed movement as a Mozart sonata plays on Rothko’s turntable. There is brilliant dialogue that will ring true to anyone who knows the history of modern art, such as the scene wherein Ken berates Rothko for his disdain to the new, young artists, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, saying that just as Rothko’s generation had been the dogs that respected and admired Matisse and Picasso but had to kill them off, Stella and his contemporaries were the new dogs that were killing off Rothko and the Abstract Expressionists. Rothko did commit suicide a decade later in 1970. ![]() As per example, at one point in the play, Rothko talks about Jackson Pollock’s suicide as a heroic act and he inadvertently slips in a word about his own pending suicide, which he quickly backtracks, insisting he didn’t say it and Ken must have misheard. They believed in and perpetuated the myth of the artist as a troubled genius. To the Abstract Expressionists, art was a baring of one’s soul. As he paces the studio making sometimes outlandish pronouncements about art and life, the audience gets a peek into the inner workings of this complex and troubled artist’s mind. Valcho portrays the artist as pompous, grandiloquent, autocratic, proud and abusive. Tuttle displays subtle acting skills as he portrays the young man’s gradual transformation from a fearful idol worshiper to a man with a mind of his own - and strong opinions about art that clash with Rothko’s ideas. The audience sees him cowering, afraid to speak, but gradually he becomes stronger, surer of himself and he confronts the volatile artist. As Tuttle-Gates portrays him, Ken is at first enamored of Rothko, a hero of the Abstract Expressionist movement. It is a tour de force for actors Christopher Valcho as the painter Mark Rothko and John Tuttle-Gates as his studio assistant, Ken, and for director Jim Patrick.Īt an hour and a half with no intermission, this verbal sparring match between Rothko and Ken takes place entirely in Rothko’s painting studio over a period of two years as the painter works on the largest commission of his career, 600 square feet of paintings for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York. John Logan’s dramatic two-man show Red at Olympia Little Theatre is engaging, intelligent and highly intense. ![]()
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