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“Gruesome Playground Injuries” opens when Kayleen and Doug meet not-quite-cute at age 8.
Both are in the playground. Both are injured.
He rode his bicycle off the roof; her tummy hurts.
“It’s as much about the broken hearts as the broken bones,” said Deborah Block, Theatre Exile’s producing artistic director. In “Gruesome Playground Injuries,” playwright Rajiv Joseph “manifests all of our emotional pain physically. It’s fun and a little bloody and a little naughty.”
You gotta love the title: “Gruesome Playground Injuries.” Who can resist?
But Block has many other reasons for why the South Philadelphia theater company, now celebrating its 30th anniversary, decided to remount “Gruesome Playground Injuries,” which it first staged in 2011.
“One reason we love this play is that it’s a love story turned inside out,” said Block, who is also directing the production. Jenna Kuerzi and Daniel Burgess play the accident-prone duo.
“As much as you see the love and friendship they have for each other, it’s also as much about the obstacles we put in the way to our own happiness,” Block said.
Over and over again, there are stupid choices, false cues, missed connections – frustrating and funny. And so it goes for the two characters. Every time they meet they’ve been injured, mostly hilariously, but sometimes gruesome.
“I picked this because it’s a human journey story where all of the grittiness and the foibles and our brokenness is right out on the stage,” Block said.
“We’re the obstacles, and we don’t always see it, even when we’re trying not to be the obstacles,” Block said. “Our misunderstandings, our not listening quite right. Our hearing things from one angle and not both – all get in the way of our happiness and our friendships.”
She said she hopes the audience will leave the theater thinking about their own relationships.
“It’s a safe way to see how to love people for who they are,” Block said. “We need to see how to do that for the people in our lives,” especially when we balance complicated feelings. “I love you and I want to kick you in the stomach.
“One of the greatest challenges in our lives is to differentiate between our personality and a defense mechanism that we really needed to get through high school,” Block said. “We embrace something that was helpful to us for a little while,” but later hinders relationships.”
During the play, the characters meet every five years over the course of 30 years, but not in chronological order. A playground-style scoreboard onstage helps the audience keep track.
The way Block sees it, the five-year intervals correspond with important developmental milestones that might especially resonate with millennials.
An especially fraught time, Block said, comes between the ages of 28 and 33. “If you haven’t dealt with your demons, they’ll come after you,” she said, specifying the demons of childhood, adolescence and the post-teen years. “At 33, you are standing on the precipice of the next set of decisions,” the ones that determine how you’ll live as an adult.
And finally, at age 38, it’s time for a check-in. “What decisions did you make? How do you feel about yourself? Are you OK? Do you embrace yourself as a person?” Block said.
Sounds serious, and it is, to a point. Comedy abounds. “We laugh in this play a lot,” Block said. “It’s like when you laugh at a funeral.”
FYI
“Gruesome Playground Injuries,” through Nov. 15, Theatre Exile, 1340-1348 S. 13th St., Philadelphia, 215-218-4022.
janevonbtheater@gmail.com
