Adding background color to table rows
You can add class for the row and add background for this class via the css

$row = array(
  array(
    'data' =&gt; array(
      array( 'data' =&gt; 'cell1'),
      array( 'data' =&gt; 'cell2'),
      array( 'data' =&gt; 'cell3' ),
    ),
    'class' =&gt; array('my-class'),
  )
);

print theme('table', array('rows' =&gt; $row));