Grant Terzakis and Marilyn Bass (Photo by Alisa Schulz)
Reviewed by Lovell Estell III
Playhouse West, Magnolia Studio
Through March 2
Playwright Rajiv Joseph’s problematic 2009 drama chronicles a decades long relationship between two people that are, to say the least, “messed up, tore up from the floor up.” What starts innocently enough transforms into a mystifying bond that may or may not be love, and lacks a satisfying clarity.
Kayleen (Marilyn Bass) and Doug (Grant Terzakis) are young classmates at a parochial school where they meet in a nurse’s office and bond over their injuries and maladies. Doug is a reckless daredevil who continually tempts fate and, in the process, endangers life and limb. He has bashed his head in a tumble, while Kayleen is throwing up because of an excruciating stomachache which she attributes to “bad thoughts.” Pain and trauma are the common denominators here, and they continuously wash over these characters like a murky, tempestuous wave.
This contours what happens between them over the next thirty odd years, through a flurry of scenes that are not chronologically ordered (the characters age forward and backwards, a structural element that sometimes gets quite confusing). Doug channels Evel Knievel and falls off a roof; loses an eye; and winds up comatose in a hospital because of a lightning strike. Kayleen is afflicted with stomach ailments that continuously result in her throwing up. Later, she turns to cutting herself, and we learn that her mother left her and she was raised by an abusive father.
This strange attraction-repulsion matrix continues throughout the years, in spite of their going their separate ways, and undergoing a bad marriage and family loss.
The final scene is as puzzling as everything that went before it, with Doug in a wheelchair, and Kayleen right there by his side. This is a problem that could have been partially alleviated had the playwright delved more into the psychological particulars of these characters, the why of their damaged psyches, and, more essentially, the quiddity of their strange and oftentimes destructive attraction for each other. But — he hasn’t. The result is a huge hole in the center of the play that is never filled.
The performances are good, but not decisively convincing. Wolfgang Bodison directs.
Playhouse West, Magnolia Studio, 10634 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. Saturday 7 p.m., Sun. 2 p.m. through March 2. https://www.onstage411.com/newsite/show/play_info.asp?show_id=7347 Running time: Ninety minutes, no intermission.
