Curtis Belz (Photo by Bobby Garabedian)
The Davidson/Valentini Theatre at the Los Angeles LGBT Center
Reviewed by Taylor Kass
Through Sept. 29th
RECOMMENDED
Celebrated playwright Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries is an actor’s dream. In a series of vignettes, jumping backward and forward in time over the span of twenty years, it tells the story of Kayleen (Sofia Vassilieva) and Doug (Curtis Belz) – two complicated, vulnerable, accident-prone best friends. As life (and poor decisions) leave them with emotional and physical scars, their friendship blooms into something that could be love.
Gruesome Playground Injuries is packed with meaty monologues, delicate scenes, and the challenge of portraying characters at a wide range of ages and with a plethora of physical ailments. It requires only two actors and very few set or technical elements. Actors Curtis Belz and Sofia Vassilieva, along with directors Barbara Bain and Katelyn Ann Clark, developed this production as an extension of their work in class at the Actors Studio. The final version, currently playing at the Davidson/Valenti Theatre at the Los Angeles LGBT Center, still retains the simplicity and sparseness of a scene in acting class. Luckily, the acting is compelling enough to speak for itself.
From the moment they meet outside the nurse’s office at age eight, Kayleen and Doug are strangely drawn to each other. He’s boisterous, earnest, and seemingly unaware of his body’s capacity for injury. She’s perceptive, guarded, and annoyed by her own constant anxiety. As they get older, the self-injurious behavior on both their parts become more severe.
When does putting oneself in harm’s way become self-harm? Is there something darker behind the characters’ facade of fearlessness? Is pain their love language? Physical injuries as a representation for emotional injuries is a pretty straightforward metaphor, but Belz and Vassilieva mine for additional layers of meaning in the text and draw out every nuance in their complicated characters. No one comes out of life unscathed — it’s about who’s there to bandage your wounds.
The Davidson/Valentini Theatre at the LGBT Center, 1125 N. McCadden Pl., Hollywood; Thurs.-Fri., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm; thru Sept. 29. https://www.tickettailor.com/events/gruesome .
