Review - Red Speedo

I have a friend who teases me because he thinks I only enjoy Lucas Hnath's plays because Lucas Hnath is handsome.  Well, yes, he IS handsome (as is my teasing friend), but I like Hnath's plays because I like the way he writes.  I like the way his brain works.  I like that he writes smart dialogue that sounds like the character and not just like the playwright.  I like how he lets me decide for myself how to feel about his characters and his situations, without taking sides. I like the wide range of subjects he writes about.  I just like the way he tells a story. Since I've already enjoyed seeing three of his plays, I guess I was predisposed to enjoy Red Speedo last night.  Hurray for predisposition!

I'm so grateful that another handsome friend let me be his plus-one when he used his New York Theatre Workshop subscription ticket for Red Speedo.  I'd been looking forward to it for quite a while and I was not disappointed.  Plus, after the show, there was a talkback with the actors!  I do so enjoy a talkback!

Red Speedo tells the story of Ray, an Olympic-caliber swimmer, who is preparing for the Olympic trials.  The play opens with Ray's brother, a fast-talking lawyer now representing his brother's interests, delivering a diatribe to Ray's swimming coach, while Ray listens, seemingly disinterested in the conversation.  The scene is filled with lots of quick speech, repetition, stammering and first-rate characterization moments. You get a real sense of the dynamics between these three men right off the bat. The way things twist and turn from there is terrific.  We hear in that first scene that Ray's participation in the Olympic trials could be in doubt - that situation leads to many more developments, some foreseeable and some not.  The play touches on performance enhancing drugs, endorsements, class issues, morality and the idea of the American dream.  Just to name a few ideas.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

There is a fourth character, Ray's ex-girlfriend, who is a former sports therapist, now extremely down-on-her-luck, mainly due to her own actions, but also due to something Ray's brother did. So everyone in this play is desperate for something - for a spot on the Olympic team, for fame, for money, for success, for self-worth.  These are four people willing to do anything to alleviate their desperation, and what they all do, or don't do, is what makes up the 90-minute running time of Red Speedo.

I really loved the play, as you might have guessed.  One, I love Hnath's work.  Moving on. I also enjoy a sports story, especially a sports story that uses sports to tell a totally different universal story. As someone who follows Olympic and other athletes, these characterizations seemed true to me.  I thought the writing was spot-on for each character; each character sounded like themselves, if that makes sense.  Ray is uneducated, hides behind his lack of education, yet might have the most common sense of anyone on the stage.  So his slacker-affect is just right.  Peter, Ray's brother, just keeps talking, over everybody else, over himself, until he just can't talk anymore.  So what do his words mean?  His fear of failure is palpable, and so is the dual nature of the relationship between the brothers.  There's love, certainly, but there's also distrust, fear, disappointment, manipulation.  So many different facets tied up in this relationship. Then, by adding on the relationships/dynamics of the coach and the ex-girlfriend, we see how these people change their behavior to get what they want from everybody else.  Ray, in particular, is not what he seems from scene to scene.  There is so much going on, above and below the surface; I loved that.  Ooooo, I think I just made a swimming metaphor.  :)

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

I was completely caught up in the story, going back and forth about how I thought things would play out, and I was frequently surprised, but not in a 'oh, they wouldn't do that' kind of way.  I loved how Hnath didn't judge or take sides.  Each bad act or questionable decision was presented fairly and honestly and it was up to us to make up our minds how we felt about them.  And, I have to say, the building up to the stage violence that occurred at the end was masterful.  It was expected and unexpected at the same time.  And that was some of the most emotionally and physically horrible stuff I've seen in awhile.  I kept having to hide my eyes and I kept verbalizing my discomfort - a guy sitting in front of me kept looking at me, I don't know, to make sure I was ok.  Or to wish I would shut up.  One or the other.  But I was genuinely scared and disturbed and saddened that things had to come to this.  Yet the ending was still ambiguous - there are many ways things could go on after the final blackout.  And that's another thing I loved about the storytelling.

photo credit: Joan Marcus

The set was fantastic - the front was an actual pool; well, part of a pool that had wonderful lighting effects to make it look like things were happening on the other side of the pool that we weren't seeing. The chlorine smell immediately gave a sense of place and detail right when you walked into the theater - in fact, my eye started to swell and itch a little bit since I'm rather sensitive to chlorine.  So things felt authentic to me right off the bat.  It was very interesting, after the show and before the talkback, to hear about the pool, how's it's heated, filtered and maintained through the run of the show, then it was interesting during the talkback when the actor who played Ray described how they came up with what stroke he would do in the pool at the opening of the show.  The acting was fantastic, from top to bottom, and then hearing from the actors during the talkback about how much respect they had for the writing and for the characters was very heartening.  I'm really glad we stayed for the talkback because it's always interesting to me to differentiate the actor from the character.  And these actors, and characters, were very compelling, coupled with a terrific script, which made the experience of seeing Red Speedo a fantastic one indeed.  The house was full last night, but I believe there are discounts to be had, if you keep your eyes open.  Who knows, you might even see me there again!