‘Red,’ about painter Mark Rothko, is a big winner at Tonys, as Broadway celebrates its best

‘Red’ a big winner at Tonys

NEW YORK — “Red,” the anguished two-man drama about painter Mark Rothko and the timeless tug of war between art and commerce, was a big winner Sunday at the 2010 Tony Awards, receiving the best play prize and five other honors.

“This to me is the moment of my lifetime,” said “Red” playwright John Logan.

The play picked up prizes for Michael Grandage, who won for best director of a play, and Eddie Redmayne, who won featured performance by an actor in a play as the increasingly disillusioned assistant to Rothko, the abstract expressionist who agonizes over whether to accept a lucrative commission for the Four Seasons restaurant.

“This is the stuff dreams are made of. Wow,” Redmayne said, clutching his prize.

“Red,” starring Alfred Molina as Rothko, was also awarded a Tony for best lighting design of a play, best sound design and best scenic design.

“Fences,” a revival of August Wilson’s deeply personal drama about family, won for best revival of a play and its two stars, Denzel Washington and Viola Davis, won for best actors in a play. Even their acceptance speeches seemed to complement each other.

“My mother always says, ‘Man gives the award, God gives the reward.’ I guess I got both tonight,” Washington said after winning for his performance as the sanitation man who might have been a baseball star. It was his first Tony Award and nomination.

“I don’t believe in luck or happenstance. I absolutely believe in the presence of God in my life,” said Davis, honored for playing Washington’s all-sacrificing wife. “It feels like such a divine experience eight times a week.”

“Memphis,” a tale of segregation and integration in the American South, was cited for best orchestration, original score and best book of a musical. “Fela!” won for Bill T. Jones’ choreography, best costume design of a musical and best sound design of a musical.

Best direction for a musical went to first-time nominee Terry Johnson of “La Cage Aux Folles.” Scarlett Johansson won for best featured performance as an actress in a play for her Broadway debut, the object of her uncle’s lust in Arthur Miller’s “A View From a Bridge.”

“Every since I was a little girl I wanted to be on Broadway and here I am,” said Johansson, the voluptuous Hollywood star best known for such films as “Matchpoint” and “Lost in Translation.”

“Fela!” and “La Cage aux Folles” were the dominant nominees at Sunday’s star-laden Tonys.

“Fela!” — the innovative Afro-beat biography of Nigerian superstar Fela Anikulapo-Kuti — and “La Cage aux Folles” — a revival of the classic Jerry Herman-Harvey Fierstein musical farce — had 11 nominations.

They were followed by “Fences,” with 10 nominations, and “Memphis,” with eight.

The ceremony, from Radio City Music Hall and telecast on CBS, was hosted by Sean Hayes. He was up for leading actor in a musical for his portrayal of Chuck Baxter, the insecure company man who lends out his bachelor apartment for extramarital, romantic dalliances by its executives, in a revival of “Promises, Promises,” inspired by Billy Wilder’s Academy Award-winning “The Apartment.”

“I have actually managed to combine a good chance of losing with a good chance of bombing,” he joked during his opening monologue, which was widely applauded.

One of Hayes’ co-stars, scene-stealing Katie Finneran, won for best featured actress in a musical. Best featured actor in a musical went to Levi Kreis as rock ‘n’ roll wild man Jerry Lee Lewis in “Million Dollar Quartet.”

Historically, Tony-nominated hosts have fared well. Hugh Jackman won a trophy in 2004 for his portrayal of Peter Allen in “The Boy From Oz.” Nathan Lane won twice while at the helm: in 1996, when he won lead actor in a musical for “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”; and in 2001, when he shared duties with Matthew Broderick and won a Tony for “The Producers.”

Hayes began with a playful piano medley circling around “Give My Regards to Broadway,” then stepped up the beat and segued into a stomping “Blue Suede Shoes,” as performed by cast members from “Million Dollar Quartet.” Segments from “Promises, Promises,” ”Come Fly With Me” and others followed, capped and stolen by a shouting medley from Green Day.

Five-time Tony winner Angela Lansbury, a nominee Sunday, was named the first-ever honorary chairman of the American Theatre Wing. Special Tony Awards for lifetime achievement were given to playwright Alan Ayckbourn (”The Norman Conquests,” a trilogy that won the play-revival Tony last year), and actress Marian Seldes (”A Delicate Balance,” ”Equus,” ”Deathtrap,” ”Three Tall Women”).

The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Conn., received the regional theater award.