By: Darryl Reilly
A cane, an eye bandage, a wheelchair, and scars are evidence of the many wounds a man and a woman endure in playwright Rajiv Joseph’s haunting 90-minute drama Gruesome Playground Injuries. It is structured as eight punchy short nonlinear scenes spanning 30 years, with titles such as “Scene 6, ‘Age Thirty-Three: A Blue Raspberry Dip’” which are projected above the playing area.
Our throw up is all mixed together. You wanna see? So awesome.
Doug and Kayleen are eight-year-olds who encounter and bond with each other in the nurse’s office of their Catholic elementary school. She’s there for severe stomach issues and he jumped off the roof. With minimal though precise background information and poetic dialogue, Mr. Joseph, a Pulitzer Prize-finalist for his Iraq War fantasia Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, crafts a hypnotic character study of two troubled souls platonically yet intensely ever after connected by their self-inflicted and accidental injuries. Along the way there is self-cutting, foolhardy physical exploits including intentionally being struck by lightning, and drug and alcohol abuse. Gruesome Playground Injuries’ theatrical power is in the deep psychological portraits Joseph offers of this couple.
First performed in 2009, the play’s New York City Off-Broadway premiere was in 2011. This starry Manhattan revival is presented at Off-Broadway’s Lucille Lortel Theatre in Greenwich Village.
Two-time Tony winner Kara Young is simultaneously vivacious and heartbreaking as Kayleen. Succession star Nicholas Braun is winningly boyish and at times charmingly goofy as Doug. The 6’ 7” Mr. Braun’s height never becomes a distraction due to his magnetism. He and Ms. Young have a tremendous rapport and their camaraderie is palpable as they evoke the poignant complexities of their dysfunctional characters from childhood to middle-age. Together they transcend the production’s negligible presentational vision. That begins with their exaggerated cartoon-like children’s performances in the initial sequence which is played for obvious laughs as much of the show lamentably is.
That grating quality is representative of director Neil Pepe’s hyperbolic physical staging. Scene transitions are laboriously prefaced by the strategically placed actors stripping down to their underwear in dimness to put on a succession of costume designer Sarah Laux’s authentic outfits. Then there is Mr. Pepe’s reliance on overblown stagecraft.
Scenic designer Arnulfo Maldonado provides two hospital beds in a black void framed by transparent panels which also occasionally has the actors’ shadows. It’s all certainly otherworldly and the actors are burdened with perpetually rearranging set pieces for each scene. Japhy Weideman’s frantic lighting design connotes the time shifts via pointed hues. David Van Tieghem’s sound design is suitably blaring, and his original score is ominously modern. The unison of these elements is overbearing. Arguably, a more simplified approach would have better realized the author’s intentions. Makeup designer Brian Strumwasser’s flourishes are tastefully grisly and include a creepy gouged eye socket.
Despite its heavy-handed production, this incarnation of Gruesome Playground Injuries is still worthy because of Rajiv Joseph’s impeccable command of dramatic writing and the often-scorching performances of Kara Young and Nicholas Braun.
Gruesome Playground Injuries (through December 28, 2025)
Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher Street, in Manhattan
For tickets, visit www.boxoffice.lortel.org
Running time: 90 minutes with no intermission