Intimate Joy and Calculated Minimalism: Review of Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph, Directed by Anna Moskowitz and Produced by Zoe Brown (Los Angeles - April 2023)
When I was ten years old, I was at a friend’s birthday party. While I was in the pool, a ping-pong paddle that some other kids were throwing at the water like a skipping stone hit me in the face hard enough to split open part of my face, barely missing my right eye. In the seventh grade, a friend of mine lost his finger when it got caught in ropes he was using to help dock a boat. The next year, another had an ongoing bout of pneumonia that took him out of school for an entire month. Almost everyone’s childhood was punctuated by at least one of these random moments that made the world suddenly seem like a much more dangerous place.
Written by Rajiv Joseph, Gruesome Playground Injuries tells the story of two life-long friends, Doug and Kayleen, whose lives are defined by a series of injuries. The story jumps back and forth in time over the course of 30 years, with each scene finding the characters reuniting in the aftermath of accidents, some mundane and others life-threatening. The first time we meet them, they’re in their elementary school nurses’ office, and by the end of the play they’re adults finding ways to deal with their multitude of scars, both physical and emotional.
On paper, that all sounds rather bleak. Fortunately, it’s an absolute joy to watch Doug and Kayleen’s relationship grow. Doug, played by Andrew Simon, is reckless and immature, using his sense of humor to mask a deep sense of pain. However, he’s also deeply loyal and sensitive, the kind of person who’d be willing to start a fight he knows he’ll lose if it meant protecting someone he cares about. Meanwhile, Kayleen, played by Hope Luna, is far more subdued, finding ways to exert quiet control over the ways her life constantly spins into chaos. Although their relationship is filled with gaps and ellipses, the audience gets to watch the ways they continually prove how much they genuinely care for each other.
Director Anna Moskowitz takes a minimalist approach to the production. The set mostly consists of a single bed, with costume changes and a projected title between each scene conveying where we are in the characters’ lives. Interestingly, she and the Executive Producer Zoe Brown made the decision to set the stage in the middle of the Anthony Meindl's Actor’s workshop, with seating on either side. It creates an uncomfortable intimacy, allowing the audience to not only be close to the characters but to also see the viewers on the other side of the room as they follow the characters on their journey.
Fair warning, the play does explore some very heavy, potentially triggering themes, including references to sexual assault, self-harm, and suicide. There’s also something existentially terrifying about the story that comes from watching these different accidents and traumas take an accumulating physical toll on the characters. By the end, it’s hard not to feel deeply conscious of the frailty and inevitable decline of the human body. However, this never feels cheap or designed to shock the audience. Instead, it serves as an unflinching look at how pain inevitably shapes us into the people we become.
If Gruesome Playground Injuries has piqued your interest, I encourage you to explore other productions of this timeless classic, as each rendition brings its own unique vision and interpretation. Keep up with this creative team via their official Instagram, https://www.instagram.com/gruesomeplaygroundinjuries_la/.
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- Directed by: Anna Moskowitz
- Executive Produced by: Zoe Brown
- Additional Producers: Andrew Simon, Drew Woodruff
- Actors: Hope Luna, Andrew Simon
- Play Written By: Rajiv Joseph