Were Critics Warm to Adam Rapp's Red Light Winter?

Adam Rapp's sexually charged Red Light Winter was a hit at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre last summer and has now moved to Gotham. The three-person drama opened a commercial run at the Barrow Street Theater on February 9. Did critics think it should last until summer thaw and beyond?

Here is a sampling of what they had to say:

Ron Lasko in his Broadway.com Review: "Even with the inconsistencies between scenes, it is evident that Rapp is a gifted playwright. He also does remarkably well as director of the piece. His trio of actors are all quite good, particularly Denham as Matt; you just want to run up and hug him. Red Light Winter is ultimately an engaging, if not wholly satisfying, evening of theater."

Charles Isherwood of The New York Times: "Red Light Winter comes trimmed in a disappointing array of contrivance and cliché, but Mr. Rapp is here exploring a wider range of human emotion and writing with a new sensitivity to match his natural gift for crackling, hyperarticulate dialogue… The claustrophobic atmosphere of Red Light Winter is gradually suffused with too many stale ideas about the cruel ironies and sometimes savage realities of romantic attraction. Mr. Rapp is a playwright of obvious promise and carefully honed gifts, and it's a hopeful sign that his writing continues to mature. Now he just needs to find something truly new or truly meaningful to say."

Frank Scheck of The New York Post: "Rapp's dialogue is at once hilariously funny, scathingly edgy and vividly real. Superbly directed by the author and acted to perfection by a youthful cast, the production--imported from Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre--features sexually charged dialogue, situations and nudity. It is absolutely spellbinding."

David Rooney of Variety: "Adam Rapp's aspirations to the beatnik-lit firmament aside, Red Light Winter is a tortured triangle of unrequited love that bristles with animosity, attitude and raw heartache, unforgivingly directed by the playwright and shot through with sexual tension by a fine trio of actors… In his plays Rapp has often revealed an attraction to a somewhat posey terrain of romanticized squalor and cosmetic edginess, along with a tendency toward literary over-embellishment. Those wearying qualities are successfully offset here by acid-dipped humor, incisively drawn characters and emotional ugliness that feels less calculated than in Rapp's previous works. While the writer's talent as a prose stylist has at times compromised involvement in his narratives, this taut Steppenwolf commercial transfer inches more insidiously under the skin."

Michael Kuchwara of The Associated Press: "Despite a parade of tantalizing moments, including some serious flashing of skin, the play often seems to be marking time. The playwright is also the director, so a new, second pair of eyes, as director and editor, would seem to be in order to make this Red Light Winter realize its full potential."

Linda Winer of Newsday: "If you cannot imagine being swept away and put off by a very big talent in the very same play, we suggest a visit to Red Light Winter. Adam Rapp's haunting yet annoying, captivating but not really credible, sexually raw and emotionally slick powerhouse of a drama opened last night at the tiny Barrow Street Theatre in the same superb production he directed for Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago last summer. In the self-referential words of Matt, the depressed playwright of Rapp's brutal three-character joyride, this is a 'double unrequited love thing ... in which the hypotenuse of the love triangle never quite gets completed.' Red Light Winter, which arrives with a best-play award and buzz crackling from the Midwest to the West Village, is also overwritten and underdeveloped, with enough psychological plot holes to fuel the wrong kind of debate by its disturbing conclusion."