Ego Death Collective invites the audience to take a leap of faith and step into an extremely intimate blackbox theater for a show filled with deeply flawed characters, exposing the very worst parts of themselves in this risqué production of Red Light Winter by Chicago’s own playwright Adam Rapp, directed by Grayson Kennedy.
This show holds a magnifying glass up to the messy, deeply intimate dynamic between two friends, Matt and Davis, and a sex worker, Christina, whom they encounter during their time abroad in Amsterdam. The first act captures their initial meeting; while the second act jumps ahead a year later, finding them all back in New York City.
The play wrestles with unrequited love, the choice to look past (or outright ignore) someone’s worst flaws, and the undeniable griminess of humanity.
The show wastes no time jolting the audience into discomfort. Within the first 20 seconds of the lights coming up, we’re confronted with an attempted suicide. No lines are spoken—we’re simply dropped into the trenches with these characters, forced to sit in the rawness before we can even catch our breath. The script is sharp, unforgiving, and deeply unsettling in a way that feels painfully human. Rapp does an excellent job portraying such dark, complex emotions, pushing the audience into a kind of disturbing sympathy we may not want to feel, but can’t quite escape.
The set, designed by Grayson Kennedy, is dark, dirty, messy, and almost suffocating. It perfectly mirrors the inner turmoil unraveling among these three characters. Its chaotic uniformity strips the visuals down to their bare bones, leaving nowhere to hide and forcing the audience to confront the consuming, unfiltered reality of this deeply messed-up love triangle.
Matt, played by Derek Preston Ray, and Davis, played by Tom Cook, share a peculiar friendship built on jealousy and competition. In Christina’s presence, they constantly challenge and belittle one another, each trying to win some invisible upper hand. Yet the second she exits, their dynamic softens into something almost tender. It’s almost supportive, familiar, even loving. It leaves you questioning why two people who seem to hold such unwaveringly negative opinions of the other still cling so tightly together.
Cook dominates the room from the moment he steps onstage. Confident and cocky, he dives headfirst into the character of Davis who is deeply selfish and, at times, outright disgusting. What begins as witty sarcasm quickly unravels into humiliating degradation—aimed at both Matt, his supposed best friend, and Christina, a lonely soul aching for connection. His performance is layered, provocative, and strikingly strong in the way he masks cruelty with charm, positioning himself as the perfect foil to the obviously wounded Matt and Christina.
Kelleher’s portrayal of Christina is raw and vulnerable, quite literally stripping away the layers of this misunderstood woman behind the glass in Amsterdam’s Red Light District. She initially presents herself as a naïve French woman just looking for a good time, but slowly reveals her true self to Matt—dropping the persona in a moment where both of them are desperate to be seen without judgment or ridicule. It’s intimate and fragile, and Kelleher handles it with a quiet strength that makes it hard to look away.
Matt, in turn, mistakes that fragile intimacy for true love. He spends the next year obsessing over her, carefully constructing an entire world and past for her inside his own head. So when she appears on his doorstep, it isn’t just a reunion; it’s a reckoning. She pulls the final curtain down, shattering the fantasy he’s clung to and exposing truths he was never prepared to face. Ray’s performance leans fully into the discomfort. He is awkward, needy, and at times downright wretched. You want to root for him—you really do—but there’s something so deeply unsettling about Matt that you just can’t quite get there.
This production is strictly for mature audiences. It contains explicit depictions of sexual intercourse, suicidal attempts, and drug use, along with heavy onstage smoking in an intimate theater space, elements that may not be suitable for sensitive viewers.
Red Light Winter received the Jeff Award for best new work in 2005 for Steppenwolf Theatre's Garage Theatre production. The play was a finalist in 2005 for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Red Light Winter runs through March 8 at Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N Lincoln Ave. The show runs approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes, including a 15-minute intermission. Tickets are $27 and can be purchased at greenhousetheater.org.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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