Before the closed black curtain, at each end of the stage, a scantily clad gal gyrated, butt up. We walked through an aisle and up stairs strewn with colored packs of condoms. On the other side of that curtain, we sat as close together as metal folding chairs permitted. We viewed a cramped, messy hostel room in 2004 Amsterdam's red-light district, as if seeing the action through an opening in the (imaginary) wall. Much larger than afforded by a peep hole in a sex shop, the perspective given was yet similar. Was Adam Rapp's or Danny Jones' idea in Red Light Winter to make us voyeurs?
In the play, Matt, an ever-"emerging" playwright, is about to choke himself with a scarf attached to a door. Opening it, his old college roomie and travel buddy Davis aborts Matt's suicide. A lucky fluke's made Davis a successful publisher's scout, besting Matt career-wise just as he had personally by stealing, then marrying, Matt's lover. To cheer Matt, Davis gifts him with Christina (after trying her out himself, of course). Supposedly a Parisian with marital troubles and aspirations to be a singer, the scarlet-gowned gal seems touched by Matt's account of himself, enough to give him her heart along with her paid-for body. We see her yielding the latter as, clothes shed, they go undercovers in dimmed-down light. (This scene's been responsible for world-wide big box office.) Later Christina leaves the still-asleep Matt.
Two years pass. With the address Davis gave in Paris, Christina shows up, sans accent, at Matt's small NYC apartment. Astonished, as he had so fallen in love that he's been sleeping with the red dress she'd left, Matt learns from her of changed ambitions, health (AIDS), marital status (divorce). It's clear she doesn't remember him. After he explains why he's "so good" to offer a shower, a room at least for the night, and dinner, she accepts. While she's in the bath, Matt calls Davis to tell him not to pick up a cell phone he left there earlier.
Davis comes anyway, and when Matt's gone for groceries, finds Christina. Although she had come seeking Davis, it's clear he doesn't remember her. Their reunion is both ironic and shocking, and a subsequent final one involving her and Matt is nothing less.
Of the three characters, there's not a one worth our caring about, though Adam Carpenter does make Matt somewhat pitiable. He spits out yet articulates well Matt's literary-referenced dialogue and psychobabble.
Lithe, nimble Alicia Dawn Bullen is free of self-consciousness about Christina's frequent undressing. Very soft-spoken, she registers little emotion. By contrast, slick-talking, animated, sharply dressed Dane Dandridge (a.k.a. Clark) owns every moment he's onstage as Davis. He's the guy we love to hate; he fascinates. Has Rapp created an updated kind of Gothic?
Director Danny Jones, influenced by seeing a performance at London's Gate, told us afterward that this is the type of theater he wants to make. Does he mean intimate? (If so, there are other ways of getting us involved in a story or characters than piling us nearly on top of them.) Does he mean naturalism or presenting nudity, sex, and psychotic scenes? Will he seek ironic and black humor or pseudo poetry in his choices to act or direct? Or will he graduate to drama we can find provocative for other than sex, sadism and sorry "people"? Since he admires and is obviously at home with Rapp's work, we can hope the writer comes up with better content to bring to such a growing interpretative talent.
