Gruesome Playground Injuries

Gruesome Playground Injuries is one of those shows I hear so much about from drama school grads. Rajiv Joseph's two-hander about evolving friendships in turmoil (how many of those does this guy have?) is known as a popular showcase piece due to its simplistic cast, interperative set, and emphatic script. As someone who did NOT go to drama school, I'm excited to check it out as Keegan's opening production of their 30th Anniversary season.

Kayleen and Doug are a pair who continue to meet over 30 years, holding in common one thread: injury. Their initial meeting is in the school nurse's office at age 8, when Doug rides his bike off the roof of their school, and Kayleen is admitted for chronic stomachaches caused by "bad thoughts". The two establish a baseline relationship that feels notably darker than a normal childhood relationship, which felt a bit heavy-handed in its foreshadowing as it immediately transitions to later in life, where the stakes are more dire. Told non-linearly, the scenes are all defined by increasingly brutal means of Doug injuring himself, to the point where it becomes apparent that there is a degree of intention; his co-dependency on Kayleen, seeing her as his guardian angel, drives his pseudo-immortality as he loses an eye and later lower-half mobility. But what about Kayleen? This the play's weakest element: the sheer one-dimensionality of its sole female character. Joseph hints at her own issues -- the death of her parents, her self-harm, her sexual history -- but the show merely states that they exist before pivoting immediately back to Doug's current crisis. Therefore it does not appear that the show is about the relationship, but rather Doug's toxic parasociality with her. The most disappointing element of this to me is obviously the lack of a developed female character, but as she is increasingly portrayed as an "angel", it introduces the idea of her not even being real, a figment of this mentally ill man's imagination. But who is to say that she is the real one, and he is a manifestation of her1/10 psyche? Without the dwelling on her story that we get to the degree of Doug's, it remains a big question mark.

Staples of the DMV theatre for young audiences scene tend to have capital-R Range and the two principals here, Irene Hamilton (Kayleen) and Jimmy Bartlebaugh (Doug) exemplify it with excellently virulic performances. Hamilton particularly is superb, with her beady-eyed childishness mutating into mentally (and physically) scarring cranial weaponization is a wonder to behold, creating material to engage with out of a script that does the character so poorly.8/10

Susan Marie Rhea and Kurt Boehm do a good job creating a consistently morbid environment with enough childlike whimsy to encompass all of the show's themes. The most eye-catching element of Josh Sticklin's playground set is the giant, glowing tear in the background, not-so-well held together by stitches (which are "cool", per Doug). The colorful glow of it is but one element of Hailey LaRoe's effectively dusty lighting design. Combined with the crisp detail of Brandon Cook's sound design.7/10

For the themes of longevity and connection, Keegan excels in displaying it with their key art featuring Hamilton and Bartlebaugh gazing at the sky in a heavenly lawn scene. The connection, from opposing diagonals, contains a good bit of emotional tension that resonates through the piece. Pre-show, too, this manifests through a grungy playground, cheerful music, and the ethereal glowing of the scar. 9/10