Review: Gruesome Playground Injuries by Capital T Theatre
by Michael Meigs

Rajiv Joseph's collection of two-character scenettes for Gruesome Playground Injuries appeals to the young and restless.  Students at Texas State did it last semester, and Capital T confided it to Kelsey Kling via their New Directors Program for presentation at the FronteraFest Long Fringe.

 

Many audience members at both venues can identify strongly with this pair of awkward losers. They're searching for something, but they don't know what it is.  Doug and Kayleen first become aware of each other in primary school. For some inexplicable reason, over the course of perhaps 15 years they never really find one another, perhaps because they're too much alike; the subtly resonating theme in the piece is one of precisely self-guided defeat.  If you care about each other, why aren't you able to take care of one another?

 

Director Kling provides a dressing area for each actor, situated on either side of a central playing space.  We experience the satisfaction of voyeurs and theatre fans as we glimpse Jason Newman and Laura Artesi, each in a personal space, changing costume, props and makeup between scenes. The transformations are entertaining in themselves. Newman's assorted bandages, patches and bloody shirts establish his maladroit character with a certain affectionate humor.  The isolations of staging reinforce the theme of the piece.

 

The actors open the action by entering the central area and perching on a couple of institutional examining tables. We quickly understand that they're in the nurse's office at school, probably waiting to be picked up by concerned parents. Doug has smashed his face in a playground accident; Kayleen is ill. Much of the comedy in this initial scene comes from body language -- splayed limbs, spontaneous moves, sudden jerks, all the awkwardness and coltishness of young persons who haven't yet mastered the functioning of their own bodies. Doug's a goofus; Kayleen's a worried, distracted dreamer.

 

 

 

 

Subsequent scenes, gracefully joined by the rituals of costume change, quick alteration of makeup, and furniture shifting, follow these two into adulthood.  Or, perhaps, into would-be adulthood, for each is forever gauche and unrealized. The playwright deals these scenes like cards in a poker game -- out of sequence and with a surprise in each succeeding encounter. One or the other has suffered a disaster, often an absurd accident.  These include fireworks mishaps, a lightning strike, first fumblings of sex -- with other partners -- self-loathing and self-mutilation.  Early on, Doug comes to believe that Kayleen has some mystic healing power in her hands; he begs her to touch his injuries.  She's reluctant and fugitive.  They don't see one another for years at a time.

 

The playwright links key scenes toward the end, revealing, for example, that one encounter directly precedes the fireworks injury discussed earlier.  This deft  maneuver is momentarily satisfying, but the outcome of this ill-starred relationship leaves us uneasy, although not really unsatisfied.  Gruesome Playground Injuries is a despondent little comedy.  By the final scene, Doug's a moody man, confined to a wheelchair and half-blind; Kayleen's a psychic wreck who still doesn't understand why the two are inseparable despite the distances between them.

  

 

 

A special note of appreciation goes to the sound design by Jason Newman, a collection of energetic and evocative rock pieces and ballads that both hold us during the transitions and comment subtly on the story that's being told.

 

Other Austin theatre companies would do well to study Capital T's adroit publicity and marketing of this piece.  Artistic director Mark Pickell uses photos, a video, a series of articles at www.capitalt.org, lots of Tweets and plenty of Facebooking, a campaign that scrupulously tends its universe of 'friends' and reinforces the Capital T image.  Good job, Cap T -- and a good choice of script to maintain the Cap T vibe.

 

EXTRAS

Capital T Theatre profiles Jason Newman and Laura Artesi at their website, January 19

Click to view Capital T's promotional video (1 min. 36 sec.)

Capital T Qs and As with playwright Rajiv Joseph

Click to view the program leaflet for Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph

Comment by Jillian Owens in the Austin Chronicle, January 31 (196 words)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Gruesome Playground Injuries
by Rajiv Joseph
Capital T Theatre