Rogue Machine kicks off its seventh season with a superb production of Rajiv (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo) Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries.This two-hander, beautifully acted by Brad Fleischer and Jules Willcox, tells the story of Doug and Kayleen, self-professed “retardos” who first connect when they are eight and stay connected until they are thirty-eight, sometimes physically, always psychically.
Their journey through life is not linear; Joseph’s narrative jumps back and forth in time in jagged fashion, a technique that not only maintains a surprise element but builds a multi-layered reality. This means that the actors must make complicated adjustments as they pinball between childhood and adulthood, only to suddenly bounce back to childhood again. To further complicate things, the actors must make all transitions in full view of the audience, changing costumes, moving props and furniture around (on David Mauer’s fiendishly clever set). Director Kokernot orchestrates all of this by choreographing it like a dance-master, to the tempo of a softly throbbing musical score. It makes for an evening of magical stage craft.
As for Doug and Kayleen, they are fellow outsiders, oddballs. He is more outgoing and outrageously funny but is always defeated in life by his bizarre, self-destructive urges–such as picking a fight with the school bully or deciding to climb a roof in the middle of an electrical storm. To call him accident-prone is the understatement of the year.
Kayleen seems much more savvy and together, until it slowly becomes clear that she is a depressive and disturbed girl, subject to bouts of anorexia and self-mutilation. The dark, distressing sides of these two wounded souls are more than balanced by their bursts of humor and joyousness. Above all else, they remain loyal and linked to each other in a deeply human, touching, and maybe even profound way.
