[NEohioPAL] Review of Ensemble Theatre's "Gruesome Playground Injuries"

[Bob Abelman]

Ensemble Theatre offers an intriguing scar-tissue tragedy

Bob Abelman

News-Herald, Chagrin Valley Times, Solon Times,

The Morning Journal, Geauga Times Courier

Member, American Theatre Critics Association 

 

This review will appear in the News-Herald on 5/4/12

 

Since the days of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, dramatic literature has featured tormented souls wreaking havoc on the lives of those they love most.  Playwright Rajiv Joseph has taken this grand tradition and turned it inward by creating an intriguing tale about self-destruction.

 

In "Gruesome Playground Injuries," currently on stage at the Ensemble Theatre, we meet Doug (Dan Folino) and Kayleen (Celeste Cosentino), two poster children for auto-sabotage syndrome hell-bent on facilitating their own demise one injury at a time.  Doug is an accident waiting to happen who measures life's milestones through the scars they've left behind.  Kayleen's depression is all-encompassing and manifests itself in social isolation and self-mutilation.   

 

The two meet as wounded 8-year-olds in a parochial school infirmary and, over the next 30 years, are reunited in places driven by their maladies-assorted hospital rooms, a mental institution, a funeral parlor.  As one might expect from a scar-tissue tragedy like this, our heroes' emotional and psychological wounds have built a protective barrier too thick to be penetrated by others and too exposed to ever heal properly.

 

Doug and Kayleen are in desperate need of salvation, but their respective pathologies render them incapable of connecting with one another.  This one-act play unfolds in a serious of short vignettes that are chance meetings between the two; each a squandered opportunity to end their vicious cycle of self-destruction, which adds even more desperation and consequence to the next failed encounter.  

 

The playwright provides just enough comedy in just the right places to keep the audience from falling into its own deep depression and more than enough poignant moments to keep it glued to every word.  He also lays out the play's action in a non-linear fashion-jumping back and forth in time-which provides foreshadowing of things to come while playfully depicting the ramifications of things not yet imagined.

 

Each vignette carries its own rhythm which, under Fred Sternfeld's sensitive direction, flows beautifully one to the next and without traditional black outs between them.  Instead, the performers adjust the set pieces-cleverly constructed , multi-purpose crates decorated as if they were children's blocks by Joseph Mitchell-and then retreat to their own corner of the stage to change make up and clothing in full view.  These segues are accompanied by theme-specific contemporary music and haunting images projected on strategically placed screens.

 

Witnessing the actors applying gruesome makeup reinforces the self-induced nature of the injuries, which adds to the audience's connection with and sympathies for the characters.    While Folino's process during the transformations is highly animated and captivating, Cosentino's self-consciousness while undressing renders her transformations comparatively distant and uninteresting.  This, along with the repetition of images on the projection screens, eventually turns these unique segues into tiresome affairs.  

 

While both performers are believable, vulnerable and oddly appealing, they are uneven partners during the more delicate moments in the play.  Folino's commanding physicality stands alone, as does Doug's attraction to Kayleen.  While some of Consentino's on-stage unresponsiveness can be attributed to her character's disorder or the less colorful dialogue the playwright has provided, some are the result of acting choices that consistently push Doug and the audience away rather than occasionally pulling us closer.  

 

To muster tragedy, there needs to be the possibility of a connection between these two dysfunctional characters.  This dynamic rarely comes across, producing only drama.  Though a wonderful production, not all the emotional buttons are pushed or pushed hard enough.



Much like Rajiv Joseph's "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo," a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist that takes place during the Gulf War, all the characters in "Gruesome Playground Injuries" are  trapped within their own personal cages.  And while the Gulf war serves as a powerful reminder of the self-destructive nature of the human animal-a nature from which there is no clear or viable release-nothing drives this point home any better or more simply than watching Doug and Kayleen attempt to escape from who and what they are.   



"Gruesome Playground Injuries" continues through May 20 at the Ensemble Theatre, 2843 Washington Blvd. in the Coventry neighborhood of Cleveland Heights.  For tickets, which range from $10 to $20, call 216-321-2930 or visit www.ensemble-theatre.org.

 
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