Bob Verini – Arts In LA
Rogue Machine has turned itself into the go-to organization for provocative two-handers. If Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries lacks the dread of 2011’s Blackbird or the contemporary relevance of 2013’s Dying City, this production, directed by Larissa Kokernot, demonstrates anew the Pico Boulevard company’s knack for finding something precious in the confrontation of one man and one woman in space and time. Read more…
Pauline Adamek – Stage Raw
Playwright Rajiv Joseph gained notoriety when his politically charged play, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo — which debuted at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in May 2009 before moving to Broadway — was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Gruesome Playground Injuries had its world premiere later that same year. Both are different animals indeed. Read more…
Steven Leigh Morris – LA Weekly
“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small,” Norma Desmond says in Sunset Boulevard.
There’s a discernible condescension in a number of reviews of Rajiv Joseph’s 2011 play, Gruesome Playground Injuries, in its early productions. Mainly these reviews keep comparing it to Joseph’s “bigger” play, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which world-premiered at L.A.’s Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2009. Read more…
Sharon Perlmutter – Talkin’ Broadway
Sometimes, a playwright will use non-linear storytelling to devastating effect. Seeing the effect before the cause can make the cause—which may have otherwise appeared trivial—all the more important. At other times, telling the tale out of order engenders greater audience involvement, as the audience tries to pull the disparate pieces together to form one coherent story. Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries doesn’t do either of these things. Instead, it appears that the story is told out of order to disguise the fact that there just isn’t much of a story here. Read more…
Myron Meisel – The Hollywood Reporter
Over the course of 30 years, from ages eight to 38, Kayleen (Jules Willcox) and Doug (Brad Fleischer) “meet cute” in various emergency rooms and hospitals when one or the other (and sometimes both) have been injured or otherwise grievously harmed. Doug is a risk-taking, accident-prone daredevil, Kayleen more apt to be psychically damaged, when not engaged in adolescent cutting. Read more…
Now running through July 14.