A psychological swing on the theatrical jungle gym
STAGE: Gruesome Playground Injuries examines characters’ self-destructive sides
Caustic masochist Kayleen (Pippa Johnstone) and injury prone risk-taker Doug (Kenton Klassen) have known each other for three decades. Their friendship is one of those hard-to-handle pairings where it’s not always clear that either party stands to benefit from knowing the other. Their attraction appears to be based more on being witnesses to each other’s acts of self-destruction than on any kind of care. Or is it? In playwright Rajiv Joseph’s marvellously titled Gruesome Playground Injuries, the two characters play a grim cat-and-mouse game with one another from ages eight to 38. The pair experiences a selection of both external and internal injuries that the audience gets to “enjoy” with them, watching to see if they will ultimately heal or harm each other.
In the opening scene, titled Face Split Open, daredevil Doug fails miserably at a bicycle roof stunt. There are less blood-splattered interludes, too. Throughout, the play questions why people hurt themselves and others in a spotlight.
Reviewers agree the work is both funny and uncomfortably revealing. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be a great choice for a date night. Just double-check your partner’s take on the depiction of broken bones, cuts and psychological duress.
“Each one of these wounds happens at different times in the timeline, either 10 or 15 years apart, so you are constantly jumping forward and backward in time,” says director Chelsea Haberlin. “The moments between, the characters change costume and inflict injury unto each other or themselves and we have some pretty ingenious ways of showing it. An example is one scene where someone is cutting themselves and we have an X-ACTO knife that has blood come out of it.”
From there, you see the scene transition into the next phase, where the impact and affect of the injury is exposed, the characters absorb the moment and then move on to the next one. Will this pair resolve this MAD (mutually assured destruction) charade?
“Watching the two characters interact non-verbally, in many cases, as they create these wounds has a really interesting effect,” says Johnstone. “It allows both the audience and the cast together to suspend their disbelief in a really unique way and move around the characters’ story.”
Both Haberlin and Johnstone say the way the writer has structured the story turns what could be a possible grind into something extremely entertaining and fun for both the audience and artists.
“It’s a really cool experience playing the younger characters because there is a brightness and lightness to them that we all too often don’t get to discover on stage,” says Johnstone. “Playing characters that are both younger and older than me is really exciting for young, emerging artists like me and Kenton.”
Originally, the play was self-produced by Johnstone and Klassen as the year-end project of their 2014 Pacific Theatre apprenticeship, in which two to four up-and-coming artists are hired to work closely on all levels of operations and gain valuable professional experience. Pacific Theatre artistic director Ron Reed was so impressed with the script, production and performances that he wanted to see it on the main stage.
So if you still remember the way being dropped on the teeter-totter hurts both inside and out, Gruesome Playground Injuries just might be your swing on the theatrical jungle gym.