'Red Speedo': Racing to get ahead, whatever the costs

If manipulation were an Olympic sport, the characters in Red Speedo would medal. Theatre Exile's fascinating production of this drama by Lucas Hnath is about a swimmer with Olympic aspirations and a dependence on performance-enhancing drugs.

Ray (Brian Ratcliffe) is a none-too-bright athlete with no skills other than swimming; he arrives onstage and poolside, chest shaved, in the titular crimson swimsuit, sporting a major tattoo. Colin McIlvaine's impressive set gives us the corner of a regulation pool, muted light through long windows, and a faint whiff of chlorine.

Ratcliffe's performance hovers between a kind of blank, naive incomprehension and the wiliness of a naughty child - one whose naughtiness extends to a criminal record involving manslaughter, among an assortment of other bad behaviors.

His brother, Peter (Keith Conallen), a rich lawyer in a good suit, has bailed him out of every stupid misstep until, as the play opens, we discover that Ray's coach (played by Leonard C. Haas in bermuda shorts with a whistle), has found a cooler full of PEDs.

Peter unleashes a stunningly vile lawyerish monologue until Coach shuts him down with a high-toned speech about "ethical responsibility." One of the many remarkable aspects of Conallen's performance is that we can see Peter's mind calculate the pros and cons of any sudden setback.

It will emerge that Peter has arranged a very lucrative sports-model deal for Ray with Speedo, a deal likely to make everybody rich and famous. Unless, of course, it is crushed by a doping scandal. But as Ray, no slouch in the betrayal department himself, says, "I don't care if they're making fun of me because if I have money, I can be a real person."

Add to this swamp of greed, desperation, and ambition Ray's ex-girlfriend Lydia (Jaylene Clark Owens), a sports therapist who was his illegal pharmaceutical connection.

Red Speedo is not really about sports doping. It's about characters whose craven manipulations create a culture of moral compromise, consoling themselves with an amoral credo: "When you do what's best for you, everyone benefits."

Deborah Block's direction specializes in tense and excellent pauses, and J. Alex Cordaro has choreographed one of the most realistic and terrifying onstage fights I've ever seen. Conallen and Ratcliffe pull it off dramatically as well as theatrically, making the fight deepen their character portraits. It seems a shame that music distracts from the appalling and ambiguous conclusion.

Through Nov. 23 at Theatre Exile at Studio X, 1340 S. 13th St. Tickets: $25-$40. Information: 215-218-4022 or www.theatreexile.org.EndText