September 24, 1961– John Logan
Back in spring 2012, I caught an excellent, rather thrilling production of Red, an exciting & intense 2 character bio-drama about a slice in the life of one my most favorite painters Mark Rothko. Red was not, thankfully, an art appreciation class, but a character portrait of an angry & brilliant artist. Set in Rothko’s NYC studio on The Bowery in the late 1950s, the play follows the initiation of a newly hired assistant, into the uncompromising aesthetic of Rothko (who grew-up in Portland), at that time that he was working on a commissioned series of paintings for the famous Four Seasons restaurant in the brand new Seagram Building.
Red captures the compelling relationship between an artist & his creations. Stephen Sondheim’s brilliant stage musical Sunday In The Park With George seems similarly successful in relating this theme.
The original London & Broadway cast of Red was Eddie Redmayne & Alfred Molina. It won the Tony Award for Best Play & Redmayne won Best Supporting Actor.
Digging for a bit of information about the history of Red, I discovered that the gifted playwright John Logan is responsible for the disparate screenplays: Hugo (2011), Coriolanus (2011), Rango (2011), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), The Aviator (2004), The Last Samurai (2003), Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), The Time Machine (2002), Gladiator (2000), & Any Given Sunday (1999). He has worked with directors Tim Burton, Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, & Sam Mendes, providing adapted & original screenplays, often producing.
Logan is from Chicago where he worked as an actor for a decade before starting to write for the stage. Red won the 2010 Tony Award for Best Play & he has been nominated for an Oscar 3 times, including the delightful Hugo, one of my favorite films about movies.
In the 2013 theatre season, Logan had 2 new plays produced: Peter & Alice, about the meeting of the real life inspirations for Peter Pan & Alice In Wonderland, starring favorite Dame Judi Dench & cutie pie gay actor Ben Whishaw in London, & on Broadway I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers, directed by gay actor/director Joe Mantello & starring Gay Icon Bette Midler .
Logan provided the taut, smart story & screenplay for the 23rd James Bond flick Skyfall (2012). This Bond had a more obvious homoerotic subtext already inherent in the James Bond series, but, this one includes a scene in which Bond, played by the delicious Daniel Craig, is tied to a chair as former MI6 agent-turned-villain Raoul Silva, portrayed by yummy Javier Bardem, the best Bond villain ever unbuttons his shirt & after making a sexually charged remark, Craig’s Bond responds: “What makes you think this is my first time?”
Logan created & scripted my favorite series of 2014/2015, Penny Dreadful, filled with gay sensibility & hot homo sex scenes. The title referenced penny dreadfuls, a kind of 19th century cheap pulpy fiction publication with lurid & sensational subject matter. Logan’s brilliant thrill ride of a series draws upon a bunch of 19th century literary characters including Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray, Mina Harker & Dr. Van Helsing from Bram Stoker‘s Dracula, Victor Frankenstein & his monster from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, plus Dr. Henry Jekyll from Robert Louis Stevenson‘s The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. I can’t wait for season 3! Logan:
“I just love monsters. I’ve always loved monsters. When I was a kid I built models in my bedroom & I watched horror movies & read horror comic books. Only as I’ve grown up have I realized that the affection I have for them is a kinship.”
“Growing up as a gay man, before it was as socially acceptable as it might be now, I knew what it was to feel different from other people, to have a secret & to be frightened of it, even as I knew that the very thing that made me different made me who I was. I think all the characters grapple with a version of that, with a version of exceptionality. Can they come to peace with that thing that marks them as alien to their families and their loved ones? It was very personal to me, which is why I was so committed to writing all of it.”
“There’s a strong sort of outlaw tradition of queer response to horror. It’s a growing trend & a growing sociological & literary school of thought. The gay response to horror literature is very much en vogue currently & I hope I’m part of that tradition.”
Logan is very attractive, in that butch, but broken impish Irish manner. He lives in LA. He has discreetly thanked an unnamed partner in his Tony Award acceptance speech for Red, & has referred to him obliquely in interviews.
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