Red Light Winter
Red Light Winter, Stablemates @ SBW Stables Theatre, June 7-30; ph: 1300 306 776 or www.griffintheatre.com.au
Steppenwolf Theater of Chicago is an almost mythic institution which, like any other, must sometimes produce work which isn't up to the legend. Red Light Winter, by Adam Rapp, is one of those. Nevertheless, when it had its premiere run in Chicago in 2005, it was a standing room only success. The following year it transferred to New York and was also successful. That still doesn't mean it's a particularly good play.
It could be more to do with an American sensibility: for instance, an unshared interest in watching a couple of overgrown frat boys behaving either badly (Davis - powerfully played here by Steve Mouzakis) or sadly (Matt - Tamblyn Lord, a beautifully judged performance of the loser in love and life). As well, it is at times inauthentic and illogical - disturbing elements in a script that also lurches between stutteringly comedic and bathetic melodrama. Again, perhaps it's the cultural differences: cruelty being mistaken for irony and sentimentality for emotion.
The play takes place in a seedy flat in Amsterdam and, a year later, in an equally seedy New York apartment. The trio is the classic one of he loves her, she loves another and another loves only himself. That aside, the narrative is entirely foreign and unlikely. Davis, an exuberant jerk and newly successful book publisher (I don't think so) is on holiday in Amsterdam with his college pal the lugubrious Matt. Not only has Matt not had sex in years, but he has been an emerging playwright for so long he actually resembles Punxatawney Pete - the blinking hero of Groundhog Day.
As a special treat, to cheer Matt whose only meaningful relationship seems to be with his laptop, Davis buys the services of a red light window hooker for his friend. Christina (a soulfully melancholy Melanie Mirto) is allegedly French and married to a rich, gay Parisian lawyer who inexplicably allows her to spend six months of the year in Amsterdam working as a prostitute. She is indisputably mysterious and gorgeous so poor, silly Matt falls for her after a mercifully real-time scene of premature ejaculation. To complete his humiliation, Matt discovers that prior to gifting her to his buddy, Davis sampled the goods and after experiencing three orgasms, Christina is now in love with the book publisher. If you believe this particular possibility, then you're probably an exceedingly naive young American playwright.
The second half goes right off the rails of plausibility and, while director Ross Ganf and the three actors work wonders to make the most of this play, you have to wonder why they bothered. Most of what is worthwhile and passingly enthralling is in the energy, conviction and depth the trio inject into largely undeserving material. Corey Thomas's set design and construction is ingenious and attractive, consisting of suspended "walls" of book jackets which make for a simultaneously impermanent and comforting pair of interiors. Set decor has all the modish seedy elements of Withnail and I, but maybe grotty clothes, smelly socks and assorted other gunge is just a universal boy thing. Lighting by Nick Mollison and an ingenious sound design by Peter Neilsen also deliver more than author Rapp could hope for.
The play opens with a characteristically inept suicide attempt by the hapless Matt. After two and a half hours, that early prospect of tears before bedtime is fulfilled - although not in the way one might imagine. Is the twist worth waiting for? Not really, it's a lemon.
