"Red Light" Green Light

The first thing I noticed were the subway posters: spidery handwritten black letters saying RED LIGHT WINTER. They looked like they were advertising a new record or a new movie, but then I saw the names "Barrow Street Theatre" and "Adam Rapp." (I don't think the phrase "a play by" was used; that would be so old school.) Clearly this was a show that was reaching out to a different audience than, say, the Manhattan Theatre Club.

And then last night I attended the first (that I know of) "Blogger Night" at the theater. While I can spot some of my theater critic colleagues a mile away by now, I don't know who my fellow bloggers were last night—I couldn't stick around for the Q&A with Rapp and the cast, and the hosted bar. (I must blame some late-night copyediting work and the L train, which is not running to Brooklyn after midnight at all, and before that only rarely.)

For my part I found the play involving, sensationally acted, and finally a little tediously self-indulgent—not nearly as harrowing as I'd been led to imagine by the early reviews, but certainly depressing, in a rainy-day-haven't-showered-why-bother-to-go-out kind of way. (As my companion said, "This is Adam Rapp's romantic comedy." Indeed.) But the show is clearly connecting with its young hipster audience, and if bloggers are seen as one more way to reach that "demo"—because, after all, I know, only the hippest of the hip read this blog—well, I can't not support that.