Gruesome Playground Injuries

 Gruesome Playground Injuries
Lucille Lortel Theatre
November 26, 2025

Photo courtesy of Gruesome Playground Injuries

Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries had its Off-Broadway premiere in 2011.  It is now experiencing another Off-Broadway production at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, featuring two awe-inspiring actors who deliver enthralling performances.  Director Neil Pepe beautifully paces this non-sequential plot line, giving the audience a chance to connect the events and process the action.  Playwright Rajiv Joseph skillfully weaves touching scenes of caring and connection between his two characters, generating questions and intrigue.  This causes the audience to fully invest and hang onto every word. 

Doug (played by Nicholas Braun) first meets Kayleen (played by Kara Young) in the school nurse’s office.   They are eight years old.  Kayleen is there because she threw up.  Doug, in full Evil Knevel mode, rode his bicycle off the roof of the school.  His head is bloody and bandaged.  Kayleen asks to see his wound, then she asks to touch it.  We meet them over and over in the nurse’s office and various hospital emergency rooms through their adolescence, teen years, and adult lives.  Doug sprains his ankle at the school dance, loses his eye in a fireworks accident, and gets struck by lightning.  He asks Kayleen to touch his wound every time.  Since their first meeting, Doug has believed that she has the power to heal him.  Unfortunately, Doug is unable to reach inside Kayleen and heal the pain she carries.  

Kara Young & Nicholas Braun
Photo courtesy of Gruesome Playground Injuries

Nicholas Braun is daring, gullible, and winsome as Doug.  He tells Kayleen that his mother says he is
accident prone.  Kayleen says he’s just stupid for doing crazy things.  Mr. Braun exudes the mettle and gumption that makes it fully believable that Doug would courageously and recklessly jump into activities that cause him severe injury.  He and Kara Young develop an innate bond.  From the minute they lay eyes on one another in the first scene, when they are eight years old, they are viscerally connected.  As they get older, Kayleen continually pushes Doug away.  Ms. Young plays these moments with a compelling subtext and clear back story.  Kayleen’s dialogue offers glimpses into her turmoil.  The emotional weight is obvious.  The complex details of her past experiences are intrinsically understood.  This is the strength of Ms. Young’s performance.  While her physicality in each scene is lively and energetic, she persistently carries emotional baggage, which leers its ugly head at unexpected times.

Gruesome Playground Injuries is playing at the Lucille Lortel Theatre through December 28.  Don’t miss it!  

Domenick Danza