A Review of Sorts: "Red Speedo"
So I saw Theatre Exile's production of "Red Speedo." Holy shit and nice butts (not the shit, but literally the butts) is that a fucking complete and tight script.
I sat there, in the crowded theatre, the smell of chlorine hitting me with waves of nostalgia from the swim club when I was younger. The characters are as sterile inside as that smell, and not a single one is particularly likable or morally sound. They all have agendas and they are all, in one way or another, complete idiots. Ray (the "speedo") is actually kind of a dumb dumb, Peter (the lawyer brother) is an egomaniac, Coach (the coach) is manipulative, and Lydia (the ex-girlfriend) is more than a little vengeful.
So, the gist: An olympic qualifying swimmer...
Also, when I was in Mock Trial for that one time in high school because I was forced to do a ton of activities because I was a bad kid, the case they assigned us was suuuuuuper similar to this. Fun fact over.
Anyway. An olympic qualifying swimmer takes HGH and beats Michael Phelps and blah blah blah and everybody pushes him really hard to succeed and blah blah blah. That's not the fun part of this show. The fun part is the stuff underneath. The fact that an actor was holding fake vomit in his mouth, unseen, for an entire scene and then threw up onstage. The fact that an onstage combat fight was actually so dangerous that my friend wound up getting a bruised rib and winding up in the hospital. The fact that the only time anybody is in the pool is when a character's head is submerged in the water for a frighteningly long amount of time.
Do yourself a favor, kids, read some Lucas Hnath. I didn't do the show justice in this post because I had gotten busy and abandoned it in my "drafts" folder. But the writing is really something special. So much heart and a lot to say without ever feeling preachy or unimportant.
