Gruesome Playground Injuries

Rajiv Joseph will be having his Broadway debut this Spring with a play called Bengal Tiger in the Baghdad Zoo. Robin Williams is starring in it. As the tiger. Yeah. I don't want to be excited about this. I can't stand Robin Williams. And yet, after seeing Joseph's Gruesome Playground Injuries at 2nd Stage yesterday, damned if I don't know I'm gonna shell out the bucks to check out the tiger play. GPI stars the weirdly attractive and startlingly unphotogenic Pablo Schreiber and the incredibly skinng Jennifer Carpenter from Dexter. I'm always alarmed by Hollywood actors when they're on stage. They're so distressingly small that I want to deliver a muffin basket to them during curtain call.

Regardless, age 8: Doug has ridden his bike off the roof of a school and goes to the nurses's office. Kayleen is there because she's been vomiting. Let the cycle begin. Flashing back and forth over the course of 30 years, we see Doug continue to injure himself (losing an eye, driving a nail through his foot) and Kayleen continuing to display increasingly troubling signs of mental wounds. The two are best friends in high school and continue to be extremely close, even when they disappear from each other's lives for years at a time.

The playwright was there for a talkback after the show and talked a lot about wanting to show (in an obviously heightened way) the ways in which people allow themselves to be hurt by and for love. And yeah, that's kind of walloping you over the head with a metaphor, but the show is so specific and so funny, that it really does seem like the early work of someone destined for great things.

The talkback was genius. You've gotta love a matinee crowd asked to share it's opinions. As I looked around the audience, I noticed a solid 80% seemed to be 75+. And one of the first comments actually began with, "The thing about kids today..." and carried on with, "My generation was self-destructive, but we didn't cut ourselves! This is so bleak. I see nothing redemptive here." What is it with old people not understanding that a q&a is a time to ask questions, not air grievances? Other folks openly disliked the play (TO the playwright! Old people!), but the majority seemed to be pretty won over. It's a slight play (maybe 75 minutes including several on stage costume and set changes), but it's really enervating and engaging.

My issue was with the ending. I was not alone. Joseph explained that he does know there's a difference between having a play end and having it simply stop. Methinks he has a bit more work to do. Still, great fun and surprisingly insightful, if bearing the slightest imprint of a heavy hand.

Favorite moment: after Doug and Kayleen have both thrown up in the same trash can (note: not a play for the squeamish), someone behind be loudly declaring, "Ohhhhh God. I'm gonna vomit." Probably not the feeling the playwright was going for, but hey, that's a visceral response!