Red Laughs, Blue Laughs

In his new one-man show, comedian Colin Quinn offers a solution to a divided America: skewer everyone

- Anna Menta ​​​​​​​

“THE RIGHT SEES ONLY THE POSITIVE, and the left only sees the negative,” says Colin Quinn, pacing the stage in his sixth one-man show, Red State Blue State. Later, he amends that slightly: “Half the country sees a Nazi invasion, and half sees a Muslim invasion.”

Quinn, who hosted Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” segment from 1998 to 2000, is famously centrist, taking exceeding care to criticize everyone. In his 2013 one-man show, Unconstitutional, the Brooklyn, New York, native declared, “I’m pro–gay marriage, pro-gun, pro-death penalty and prochoice.” (The punch line: “I’m anti-overcrowding.”)

But six years is a life time in modern politics, and declaring “blame on both sides” has already gotten the current president in hot water. In Red State—running at the Minetta Lane Theatre in New York City through March 16—Quinn, 59, maneuvers more strategically around hot-button issues (including free speech, sex and the impending American civil war that will result in the world’s first “fat refugees”) while still offering ammunition for liberals on high alert for false equivalencies.