Red State Blue State

Colin Quinn envisions a modern American civil war that is far from glorious: fat refugees in jorts and flip-flops trundling toward Canada, carrying coolers, with history books eventually recording the Siege of Dave & Busters. Standing in front of a light-up wooden map of the United States, the world-weary comic spends his time laying waste to the political gridlock dividing the country, refusing to take sides because he believes both camps are equally ridiculous.

Filmed at the Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village, the show served as a 2019 CNN special presentation, adapting Quinn’s Off-Broadway run of the same name. Directed by Bobby Moresco, the performance catches the Saturday Night Live veteran in his comfort zone: pacing the stage in an untucked plaid shirt and grumpily diagnosing societal decline. He targets the rise of social media outrage, the two-party system, and even the quality of European hotel towels. The set culminates in a rapid-fire sequence where he insults all fifty states one by one, calling New Jersey “a bad idea that continued” and dismissing Delaware as a state that just wants to be noticed. While some theater critics felt the loose structure made the performance feel more like an assembled list of grievances than a theatrical piece, it found a warm reception among viewers tired of partisan finger-pointing.