Red is not a very good play (despite sweeping up awards), and Seattle Rep’s production could easily have made for a tedious evening of theater (guru artist mentors bright newbie with sanctimonious treatises) if not for Denis Arndt’s skillful transfusion of the rigor of acting to the rigor of painting. Somehow he trained his body to communicate primally with the materials, and only secondarily with his employee (played by Connor Toms). Even while pontificating with his mouth, the shadow of his finger could be seen behind the stretched canvas, testing the tautness, preparing a better visual argument than all that blather could. MARGARET FRIEDMAN Seattle Center, seattlerep.org