Keegan Theatre: Gruesome Playground Injuries

 A confession, the title and the playwright intrigued me.  So I bought a ticket.  Just before going to day I say that it was just a two person play.  The only thing more tedious than a mediocre performance by actors in a two person play is a mediocre performance of an actor in a one person play!  Upon entering the lobby--I was a bit early, I joined in with a couple and another man in a conversation about plays and actors we'd seen in productions both at Keegan and at 1st Stage and Olney Theatre Center.  It was a lovely conversation, and I got some nice scoop on a couple of actors.  As much as I feel like I know some of these actors, I am completely oblivious as to what they are up to when they are not on the stage.  This gave a nice ambiance to the start of the experience. 

Then I entered the theatre after the stage doors opened and was gobsmacked by the beautifully balanced set with a slightly over-sized swing set and jungle gym set smack dab in the middle, ensconced on a giant rotating circular platform in the floor.  Another level of excitement passed over me.  And then the lights went down only to rise again revealing the actors Lena (Kayleen) played by Irene Hamiltons and Doug played by Jimmy Bartlebaugh engaged in a vigorous swinging competition as there 6-year-old selves at a parochial school in some mid-western city.  Sitting in seat 2B I wondered whether one or both of them might soon end up in my lap!  The chemistry between the two actors was immediately obvious and electric and all my silly worries disappeared in that instance.

The play is a series of vignettes between these two friends that tells the story of how that friendship came to be, and more importantly why it remains the single most important thing in their adult lives.  While the first vignette has them at 6.  The others pop up with a lighted projection on the top of the wall stage rear and bounce around in a random eruption that takes us from 22 to 32 to 13 to 26 to 38 and others in between.  The writing is fresh and unpredictable in an authentic way.  The surprises make perfect sense as we weather the storms of their lives.  The pain is palpable at times leaving visual scars, and Doug is so accident prone that it's a wonder he's still alive at the end of the play.

The actors rose to the challenge of playing such flawed and vulnerable, lost and found, devoted and disappointed faithful friends.  The standing ovation at the end was richly deserved and now I have two more actors to be on the lookout for when selecting my next round of DMV theatre adventures.  Shout out to the entire production team: Scenic Design by Josh Sticklin, Properties & Set Dressing Design by Amy Kellett, Lighting Design by Hailey LaRoe, Sound Design by Brandon Cook (just the perfect soundtrack of angst ridden music from the 2000's and fireworks and first responder's vehicles and electrical storms that shook my seat!, oh my!), Costume & Hair/Make-up/Prosthetics Design by Alison Samantha Johnson.

As they actors bounced from one age to another, they effected costume and make-up changes dashing between clothing concealed in sandboxes, steel oil drums, cardboard boxes, as the playground rotated on its axis and the lights dimmed with music appropriate to the next year they were about to entered played under it all.  It was some of the most unusual and interesting choreography I've ever seen in pursuit of such a goal.  

Top to Bottom an excellent production.

Lena and Doug, age 6, on the swings at school.

Age 8, Doug pretends he's Evel Knievel and rides his bike off of the roof of the school gashing his cheek bone just beneath his left eye...  and so it begins.

At 19, Doug loses his left eye in a fireworks accident.  At the age of 28 he is struck by lightning and ends up in a comma.  Lena's life is pure shit by then.  Abandoned by her mother at age 14, and rejected by her father who dies when she is 18--facing the loss of Doug exposes her deeper feelings about their friendship.

At 16, Lena reveals that she is having sex with a boy named Tim.  Doug does not approve, and Lena reveals that she'd hoped it would fill the void in her life created by her parents, but it doesn't.  Then Doug discovers that she's been cutting herself and demands that she cut him, too.  If there was ever a moment in a play that had me on the edge of my seat so full of emotions that I just wanted to scream...this was that moment.

Doug, ever the master of perfect timing has knocked out a tooth on the day of Lena's father's funeral.  The scene ends with him leaving to ignite some fireworks...(and we all knew how that was going to turn out.)