Red Light Winter

Photo by Clem Mcintosh.

Red Light Winter is a play that keeps you guessing. Following its 2005 debut in Chicago, scriptwriter Adam Rapp was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for this intriguing and claustrophobic portrayal of a bizarre love triangle. The play opened for its first run in Toronto on January 8 and runs until January 23 at Unit 102 Theatre Company.

The three-hander explores the power dynamics at play in long-term relationships, in this case the friendship between Matt (Omar Hady) and Davis (Luis Fernandes), two Ivy League college buddies on holiday in Amsterdam (and later, home in New York). Davis is a charismatic douchebag (accuracy demands this term) who brings home a French sex worker, Christina (Chloe J. Sullivan), ostensibly for his neurotic and clinically depressed friend Matt. As the three get to know one another in the dingy rented rooms, relationships develop and things quickly get complicated.

Unit 102's production is excellent—the actors provide captivating performances across the board with this sophisticated and emotionally challenging script. The sloppy, sparse sets and Tom Waits music serve as entirely believable backdrops for Davis and Matt’s lives. However, I do have a quibble with Rapp’s portrayal of Christina. While he deftly captures the dorm-room relationship between two college buddies in all its clumsy affection and obscenity, I struggled to understand Christina. For much of the play, she functions as a prop, and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop; for evidence that this was a self-aware choice on Rapp’s part. That reassurance never came, and I struggled to understand Christina’s actions, to find her believable. While the play does engage with the classic idealization / devaluation (virgin / whore) theme in an interesting way, its fatal flaw is a reliance on one of the most ancient and tired clichés—that women are inexplicably attracted to mean men.

That being said, under the direction of Anne Van Leeuwen, Sullivan, Fernandes and Hady keep audiences interested, and the plot’s several twists offer ample entertainment. Overall, an interesting and well-executed production that leaves audiences with a lot to think about.

Red Light Winter runs until January 23, 2016 at Unit 102 Theatre. Visit unit102theatrecompany.com for more