The final show in Trinity’s Debut festival runs this week at the Samuel Beckett Theatre with Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries. Directed by Rian Hamill, this production is noted as an “anti-romantic comedy” and represents one of Joseph’s less well known plays.
The only two-hander over the whole festival. The show offers us snippets of the lives of two characters, Kayleen, played by Lainey O’Sullivan, and Doug, played by Tom Jordan, over a period of 30 years, tracking their lives from age 8 to 38 in a non-chronological order.
We first encounter Doug and Kayleen aged eight. They are in the office of the school nurse. Both appear to be rather accident prone in their early years and this affliction will follow them across the decades, causing both characters severe physical and mental anguish, often driving a wedge between their relationship.
Both O’Sullivan and Jordan faced the difficult task of hopping from playing eight-year-old children to 28-year-old adults, and then to 38-year-old adults, across eight scenes over the course of just over an hour. Both actors were formidable and certainly met the challenge, though the occasional slip was evident in Jordan’s character, where he would revert back to his younger self. Overall it was a wonderfully cast show – so important in a play with such a small ensemble.
The transition between life stages is reinforced and made more pronounced with minor alterations to their attire accompanied by a projection indicating the age at which our protagonists now stand. Flashing lights reminiscent of an expanded time travelling tardis also help reinforce the idea of moving forward or backward in time. All of these are highly effective in conveying a sense of movement between decades of life. Although also accompanying each scene change was an awkward shuffle or dance that felt rather stilted and perhaps stunted what could have been a more seamless transition.
“Does it hurt?”, posits Kayleen early in the play as she presses her thumb to Doug’s open head wound that has been bleeding profusely for several minutes. While Doug’s head may have been in agony, this play was by no means a difficult watch, and contrary to the title, made for a thoroughly enjoyable evening of theatre.
