REVIEWED BY KIT WILLS
EDITED BY AZMY
Content Warning: The play Gruesome Playground Injuries, as well as this review, contains reference to self-harm, graphic imagery of physical wounds and blood. The play also contains references to vomit, suicide, death, ableist language, trauma and allusions to sexual abuse/assault.
As a squeamish person, entering the Motley Bauhaus to watch a play titled Gruesome Playground Injuries filled me with equal parts excitement and apprehension. Having read Rajiv Joseph’s play, I was interested to see how Barkly Theatre would approach the blend of dark humour and difficult confronting subject matter. Spanning 30 years in the life of two dysfunctional ‘best friends’, Doug (Asher Griffith-Jones) and Kayleen (Cosima Gilbert), Gruesome Playground Injuries unapologetically opens wounds, refusing to let anything heal without a scar.
We first meet the pair at eight years old in their school nurse’s office. Kayleen has a stomach-ache – a frequent problem that stays with her throughout her life, and Doug has just ridden his bike off the school roof Evel Knievel style. Establishing their dynamic from their first time meeting, Gilbert embodies the emotionally tumultuous energy of eight-year-old Kayleen, and Griffith-Jones perfectly captures the goofy, high-energy of Doug, alleviating the tension from the scene with his excellent comedic timing. The naivety of the two is charming, and as the show progresses, increasingly bittersweet as life strips away this innocence.
The play operates on a non-linear time frame, with each scene alternatingly moving forwards fifteen years and then backwards by ten. To make this clear to the audience, a door painted with chalkboard paint was used to display the ages of Doug and Kayleen in each scene (designed by Oscar Lidgerwood and Michaela Lattanzio). Some ages were modified – 8 became 18 or 33 turned into 38 – while others were repeated, like the age of 23, or displayed at dramatically different sizes. I couldn’t help but read into this design choice as I made connections in my mind between the different scenes and how specific moments in their lives mirror one another. Through this, the audience is slowly fed pieces of Doug and Kayleen’s complex relationship, continuously working to understand what exactly went wrong throughout the years.
The minimal set of a small white bed, two boxes (one black and one white), and gauzy fabric draped from the roof resembling bandages acted as a complimentary backdrop for the emotionally explosive narrative to unfold. Intensified by the confined space of the Motley Bauhaus, the audience is brought into Doug and Kayleen’s relationship at a suffocatingly close distance, unable to do anything but watch as the pair struggle to communicate and balance their unhealthy need for one another.
Additionally, the sound by Sophia Murphy and lighting by Max McKellar also helped emphasise the passing of time whilst also enriching each setting. In the school dance scene, the sound of pulsing music can be heard in the distance as Doug and Kayleen are in the nurses office yet again. The far-off music of the dance helped highlight the distance of the two characters, and intensified Kayleen’s emotional turmoil after vomiting straight after kissing Doug.
McKellar’s lighting design transported the audience from the cold-blue light of the silent hospital wing to the dark outside of Kayleen’s father’s wake. In the scene changes, eerie electronic music paired with coloured lights removed us from the realism of Gilbert and Griffith-Jones acting and helped to strip back the layers of traditional theatre conventions.
In one scene change, Gilbert removes her costume and changes into Kayleen’s funeral attire onstage. The vulnerability of the moment is heightened by placing every step of the transformation in full view of the audience, and although Doug and Kayleen attempt to hide behind the passage of time, the audience is drawn almost voyeuristically into their most intimate moments, where the truth of their relationship is gradually revealed.
Interestingly (and to my relief), the gory stage makeup written in gruesome detail is absent from Barkly Theatre’s production, an alternative directorial and design choice made by Oscar Lidgerwood and Michaela Lattanzio which departs from the traditional design of the play. This isn’t a criticism of the performance, as I personally appreciated the toned-down violence and gore from the original play. Scenes of such graphic self-harm and gore, whilst important to the play, would have been very confronting and overwhelming; the choice to remove the visual elements helped to make it more accessible. Having said that, I do believe that the application of the stage makeup acts as a central narrative device both for the passing of time and manifestation of emotional trauma through the visual wounds. I acknowledge too this choice could have been for many reasons including time pressures, cast and crew needed to carry out the makeup changes, and budget. Despite this, as a conscious choice, the decision to tone down the visual gruesome elements allowed for a clearer focus on the acting itself.
Intensely connected yet deeply strained, the emotional range of both Gilbert and Griffith-Jones were the highlight of the performance. Where one took on the protective and caring role, the other repelled. Where one reached out desperately, the other pushed against them. There were oments of visceral anger and others of uncomfortable silence; of doors slamming and others opening. Their ability to play such a wide range of ages starting from 8 all the way to 38 was expertly done, I could feel the years increasing with them as time passed and scenes filled in the blanks.
At 23, Kayleen has lived through trauma surpassing her years. Gilbert embodies this emotional exhaustion through her acting, portraying someone desperately trying to force herself into the reality of adulthood whilst also recoiling in the face of vulnerability.
The standout moment of the play for me was Kayleen’s monologue in the hospital when Doug is in a coma. Everything she has left unsaid and struggles to say is finally said here. Kayleen’s begging for Doug to wake up as she too needed help was so passionately acted by Gilbert that every moment of Kayleen’s life materialised in that moment through Gilbert’s voice.
Doug at the same age is desperately clinging onto his youth, his physical injuries manifest into more than just his “accident prone” younger self at eight or twelve and become more serious as he blinds an eye and later falls into a coma. Griffith-Jones balances the care-free attitude of Doug with the deep anger he holds for those who continues to hurt Kayleen.
At eighteen, we see him turn to physical violence in order to protect Kayleen and even order her to break up with her boyfriend when she confides in him about the relationship. Cracking dark jokes one minute and then passionately yelling the next, Griffith-Jones heart-wrenchingly portrays Doug’s slowly wavering spirit, and his co-dependent need for Kayleen to always be there to magically ‘fix’ him when he’s injured.
Whilst not physically gruesome, Barkly Theatre’s production of Gruesome Playground Injuries emotionally cuts into the wound of life and bleeds it raw. Tumultuous, self-destructive, and at times, beautifully bittersweet, the entire cast and crew worked seamlessly together creating a heart-wrenching depiction of unconventional love and friendship.
Barkly Theatre’s Gruesome Playground Injuries played at the Motley Bauhaus 1 – 11 July.
KIT WILLS (she/her) is a third year UniMelb Arts student majoring in English and Theatre studies. Driven by her passion for performance and writing Kit is excited to be a new reviewer for the Dialog.
AZMY is a creative studying a Bachelor of Arts at UniMelb. This year, they are making theatre with The Werkz Ensemble and Cipta Theatre company!
The Dialog is supported by Union House Theatre
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