STAGE WEST: Loud Fridge Theatre Group's "Gruesome Playground Injuries"

Nicolas A. Castillo and Lark Laudenslager in "Gruesome Playground Injuries." Photo by Estefania Ricalde

            In an uncommon staging device, the two actors co-starring in Loud Fridge Theatre Group’s season-opening “Gruesome Playground Injuries” change clothes or apply makeup right before our eyes in between the eight scenes that comprise this 2009 play by Rajiv Joseph.
            In the case especially of actor Nicolas A. Castillo, who’s portraying a character repeatedly (even wantonly) injuring himself, these inter-scene sequences may stir anxiety, or dread in my case. What will Doug will look like when the story resumes? Where will the stage blood be? How realistic, how unnerving might it appear? Will he be walking with a cane, sitting in a wheelchair or what?
            It’s that tension that accounts for the rather morbid appeal of this one-act play about a friendship/not-quite-romance between Doug and Kayleen (Lark Laudenslager), who at first seems bothered only by stomach pains only to have more serious physical damage of her own later manifest itself.
            Produced in the spare confines of the Tenth Avenue Arts Center and directed tautly by Kaylin Saur, “Gruesome Playground Injuries” is, as they say, not for the squeamish. Even if you don’t buy the effects of the stage makeup, the descriptions of some of Doug’s injuries (in particular the aftermath of a fireworks accident) could roil your stomach. As could Kayleen’s graphic account of the consequences of her eating disorder.
            None of this should come as a surprise. After all, “gruesome” is in the title. Fair and full disclosure.
            The eight scenes of the play span 30 years in the relationship between Doug and Kayleen, who first meet in an elementary school nurse’s office after Doug has ridden his bicycle off a roof. The seven ensuing scenes skip back and forth in time, flitting from the pair’s teen years to their late 30s and periods in between. I’m not altogether sure why Joseph chose to utilize this non-chronological approach other than perhaps to suggest that time in a relationship is fluid or even relative.
            Castillo and Laudenslager are tasked with portraying their characters at very different times of life, from childhood to pushing 40. While Castillo’s Doug comes off demeanor-wise as mostly the same throughout, Laudenslager is able to capture the childlike petulance requisite to the earlier time periods while retaining just enough of it to portray an adult woman who’s never truly grown out of her insecurities and bitterness, most of that resulting from bad or absent parenting.
            Joseph’s script is never completely clear about the true nature of the relationship between his two characters. It’s deeper than acquaintanceship, yet connected in a way by something more complex than romantic attraction. Doug and Kayleen aren’t lovers or besties. They are bound by the daredevil Doug’s inevitable injuries and afflictions. As the years pass, Kayleen’s own injuries become more pronounced, to which Doug responds practically with excitement.
            The Loud Fridge production moves slowly, like a wound that will only heal in its own time, if at all. The lone enhancement to Doug and Kayleen’s quiet encounters and private costume/makeup changes is the recurring playing of “Dream A Little Dream of Me,” variously heard with Mama Cass tenderness or heavy metal thrashing.
            It’s an appropriate tune, because whatever Doug and Kayleen share, it feels like part reverie, part nightmare.
            “Gruesome Playground Injuries” runs through April 26 at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center downtown.