Milwaukee’s theater world hasn’t been overwhelmed by good news lately. Companies have folded, come close to imploding, or survived through severe cuts and reduced performances. Offerings have been solid, but since the demise of Theatre X and Bialystock and Bloom several years ago, there has been a decided lack of adventure on our stages.
All of which makes Youngblood Theatre’s production of Red Light Winter a cause for cheer and lifted spirit. Don’t mistake me. Adam Rapp’s bleak and brutal play isn’t exactly a play of great uplift. But to see a young company take on Rapp’s play with such brio and unflinching nerve – and with such affecting skill – warms the theater-loving heart.
Rapp has been a cause celebre in some theater circles for a while now (to many, he’s a sort of bad-boy genius), but it’s the first time he’s been produced in Milwaukee. That’s not surprising – his plays are smart, merciless, and often harsh (he makes David Mamet seem like Kauffman and Hart). And Red Light Winter is no exception. It starts in the Amsterdam Red Light District, where two friends are traveling. Davis (Andrew Edwin Voss) is buff and beautiful and knows it, and he does his introverted playwright friend Matt (David Rothrock) a favor by hiring him a prostitute for the night.
A fairly simple premise, to be sure. But Rapp uses it to let his characters reveal themselves in startling ways, peeling away layers of emotional armor and camouflage to get at dark, vulnerable truths. Red Light Winter contains moments of both unflinching brutality and almost unbearable tenderness, and its great tragedy lies how the characters’ own desires keep them from the possibility of happiness.
Director Benjamin James Wilson orchestrates the music of this play with great skill. Rapp’s language – particularly his alter ego character, Matt – is full of whip-smart verbal excess full of name dropping (Raymond Carver, Tim Burton, Jean-Luc Godard) and surrealistic puns (“Rome wasn’t built in a day-care center”). Rothrock’s evocation of Matt’s nervous chatter is Woody Allen channeled through John Hughes’ Brat Pack with a healthy dose of Beat Poet thrown in. Voss’s Davis, by contrast, is Brendan Frazer blowhard, spraying testosterone sweat as he Jackie-Chans his way into a room. Christina, the hooker with the heart of glass, unveils layer after layer as the play goes on, and Tess Cinpinski gives her just the right blend of guarded sensuality and aloofness.
Friday’s performance at the Alchemist Theater was sold out. And judging from the post-show buzz from an audience, which included many Milwaukee theater professionals, there will be a lot of talk about this production and about Youngblood’s future work. I’m sorry to say that this is the first time I’ve seen them (I missed their three productions this summer), but they are definitely a company to watch.
Youngblood isn’t the only new company in town that’s worth watching. In my Friday Five last week, I somehow missed the latest from Uprooted Theater. This Monday (January 25), Uprooted will present a staged reading of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire featuring Travis Knight and Marti Gobel. Angela Iannone directs.
