The Four Seasons Restaurant

It all starts with the desire to say no: when American artist Mark Rothko had completed a cycle of paintings for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York, he decided to refuse their exhibition after a personal crisis. He saw this restaurant’s commitment as the epitome of a new bulimia of images. Nowadays, this cycle of monumental canvases forms the nucleus of the cathedralesque Tate Modern Gallery in London.
“The Four Seasons Restaurant” is a reference to Rothko’s late masterpiece: the audience is confronted by a gigantic black rectangle that hides the entire stage, accompanied by ear-splitting music and fragmentary texts – an overwhelming technical arrangement that overpowers the senses. Mass, adoration, idolatry figure alongside fundamental concepts of religion, philosophy and nihilism in director Castellucci’s work, who started out as a visual artist.
“The Four Seasons Restaurant” is part of a cycle including Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “The Minister’s Black Veil” about Reverend Hooper, whose decision to always appear in a black veil was based on a similar act of refusal. Castellucci’s production “On the Concept of Face Regarding the Son of God”, which also belongs to “The Minister’s Black Veil” cycle along with The Four Seasons Restaurant, raises similar questions about hunger, desire and torture in the face of a superior image.