GRUESOME PLAYGROUND INJURIES

★★★★★ out of 5 Stage 8, Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre

When a show just clicks, it can be magic.

When you can tell the actors are truly inhabiting their characters, and the direction and design choices keep you captivated as the relationship between the characters unfolds, it’s a truly satisfying experience.

In Gruesome Playground Injuries, the relationship between Doug and Kayleen is complicated, and based around a lot of pain, some emotional, and some of it physical.

They meet in the school nurse’s office. Kayleen is there because of a stomach ache, while Doug rode his bike off the roof and “broke his face.” Kayleen is fascinated by his injury. Doug is fascinated by Kayleen.

Through the play, we see their friendship ebb and flow at fiveyear intervals, though various gruesome injuries, in a will-they-or-won’t-they dance that leaves you hoping for the both of them.

But pain is a funny thing. Doug’s injuries are physical, and he’s convinced Kayleen can heal him.

Kayleen feels great pain, and the scars on her legs show she is dying to let it out, but she keeps shutting out her closest friend.

How much back and forth can Doug take before he’s as damaged on the inside as she is?

The play shines because of the performances by Evan Hall and Merran Carr-Wiggin, revisiting this play for the second time, who bring a full range of emotion to these characters. It’s also due to director Ron Jenkins and designer Tessa Stamp for constructing a world for Doug and Kayleen to inhabit.

This is a hard play. It is emotional, and powerful, and funny. It’s bittersweet and sad.

The characters’ pain sits with you after the show is over. But love sometimes hurts, doesn’t it?