'Gruesome Playground Injuries' Off-Broadway review — Nicholas Braun and Kara Young leave a mark
Read our review of Gruesome Playground Injuries off Broadway, a revival of Rajiv Joseph's 2009 play starring Emmy nominee Nicholas Braun and Tony winner Kara Young.
Summary
- Gruesome Playground Injuries is a play about two friends who grow apart and reconnect over their injuries over 30 years
- The show features great onstage chemistry between Nicholas Braun and Kara Young
- The show is recommended for fans of movies like Past Lives; fans of complex romances; theatre students; and fans of playwright Rajiv Joseph's many recent NYC productions
Love is pain, or so they say. That goes for platonic love, too, and sometimes even more so. There is a charged current of desire that pulses between Doug (three-time Succession Emmy nominee Nicholas Braun) and Kayleen (two-time Tony winner Kara Young) in Gruesome Playground Injuries, and the actors have good chemistry on stage, but Rajiv Joseph's play isn't merely a scar-crossed romance. It is, though, a story about two people who love each other so hard, it's debatable which hurts more: being together or apart.
Whereas friendship is described as a handprint on the heart some 40 blocks uptown from the Lucille Lortel Theatre, in Gruesome, it's more like a punch in the gut. Or several, over the course of the 30 years covered in the play's eight episodic, out-of-order scenes.
Doug's astonishing "accident-prone" (his mom's words) nature feels less and less "accidental" with time, and he clings to a firm belief that Kayleen's touch can heal his wounds. Kayleen, closed-off and mentally unwell due to a loveless upbringing, doesn't buy it. (It's an obvious metaphor, as are the drawn-out scene transitions in which Kayleen puts on whatever bandage or makeup is required to signal Doug's latest injury: She hurts him just as much as she heals him.)
Braun's boyish face and lanky 6' 7" frame make him well-cast as Doug. If anyone's going to be the tallest thing in the area during a lightning storm, yeah, it probably would be him on a roof. He crashes through life like a wrecking ball, except he's wrecking himself, knowing the commotion will always draw Kayleen to his demolition site.
Young's character unravels more slowly, as her injuries aren't conveyed with an ACE bandage or an eyepatch. The play starts to pick up steam when she delivers the play's only monologue, pouring out her heart to an unconscious Doug on a hospital bed — a stark contrast to her self-preserving, fear-driven instinct to push him away whenever he's actually able to listen. The scene is the highlight of Young's first-rate performance, though her portrayal of the restless, nosy 8-year-old Kayleen in the first scene is just as impressive. Young's ability to slowly open up this guarded character provides Gruesome its bruised, bleeding heart.
Gruesome Playground Injuries summary
Eight-year-old Kayleen and Doug meet in the school nurse's office: she with a stomachache, he with a banged-up face from biking off the roof. Wounds both internal and external come to define their relationship over the next 30 years as the friends repeatedly pull apart and crash back together.
What to expect from Gruesome Playground Injuries
The title warns you: This show is not for the squeamish. Brian Strumwasser's makeup design is impressively, grossly realistic, from cuts on Kayleen's leg to Doug's bloody eye socket (this isn't really a spoiler). I was almost surprised that the instances of vomit are only mimed. The show is not even 90 minutes, though, so like a flu shot, the pain and bleeding will be over before you know it. (The show only feels long during the unhurried scene transitions, including costume changes performed in full view of the audience, set to an eclectic array of songs, like a slow cover of "Safety Dance.")
As a show that also deals with mental pain and illness, Gruesome Playground Injuries touches on topics including alcoholism, addiction, death, sexual assault, and self-harm.
What audiences are saying about Gruesome Playground Injuries
As of writing, Gruesome Playground Injuries has an 88% audience approval rating on the review aggregator Show-Score, averaged from 78 reviews from theatregoers who near-universally praised Young's and Braun's performances.
- "You're seeing this for the two leads and they are both very funny and have such great chemistry!! The play itself is good, but it ends abruptly and you're just left wondering in a bad way. But I did like it's nonlinear structure." - Show-Score user Jayson 9323
- "I rather like that there's some ineffable quality spinning out of Gruesome Playground Injuries that feels goosebumps-good. It's been a while since I've come out of a play absolutely smitten with how much emotion it pulled out of me, with how invested I was in the story. I immediately wanted to see it again." - Show-Score user GirlFriday
- "Young and Braun are absolute geniuses leaving you reeling and raw in the theatre." - Show-Score user Charlotte L
Read more audience reviews of Gruesome Playground Injuries on Show-Score.
Who should see Gruesome Playground Injuries
- Fans of the film Past Lives, also following childhood friends over multiple decades, and of the unorthodox, tragicomic romance in season 2 of Fleabag will enjoy watching similar themes play out in Gruesome Playground Injuries.
- Rajiv Joseph has been on an NYC theatre tear in recent years, so fans of his other recent shows — Dakar 2000, King James, Letters of Suresh, and the currently running Archduke — will want to keep the streak going by seeing this revival.
- If you're in theatre school or planning to be, Gruesome Playground Injuries's scenes and monologues are often studied in acting classes. Seeing this rare NYC revival might help you brush up by seeing Braun and Young's takes on the script.
- Gruesome Playground Injuries is a kind of foil to another two-hander on stage right now: Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). That show is a sweet, feel-good musical set over 48 hours, while Gruesome is more dark than light and set over 30 years. But the "will-they-won't-they" pairs in both stories may interest people looking for a more complicated romance than in a purely fluffy rom-com.
Learn more about Gruesome Playground Injuries off Broadway
Gruesome Playground Injuries is anchored by the well-matched performances of Nicholas Braun and Kara Young, as vulnerable as open wounds.
Photo credit: Gruesome Playground Injuries off Broadway. (Photos by Emilio Madrid)
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