Idea Transcript
Pacific Theatre Presents:
GRUESOME PLAYGROUND INJURIES By Rajiv Joseph April 1-16
DISCUSSION GUIDE
Gruesome Playground Injuries By Rajiv Joseph CREATIVE TEAM Director • Chelsea Haberlin Set Designer • Carolyn Rapanos Sound Designer • Chris Adams Costume Designer • Christopher David Gauthier Lighting Designer • Phil Miguel CAST Pippa Johnstone Kenton Klassem Stage Manager • Shelby Bushell Assistant Stage Managers • Julia Siedlanowska & Jess Amy Shead Production Manager • Phil Miguel
About the Play SHORT DESCRIPTION Over the course of 30 years, a series of unsettling injuries brings Kayleen and Doug together as they spar, spat, and haltingly try to rescue one another. A fascinating and surprisingly tender story tracing the ricocheting dynamics between a corrosive masochist and an accident-prone daredevil. LONG DESCRIPTION (Contains Spoilers) Every scene jumps forward either 15 years, or backwards by 10. Scene 1: Age 8. Kayleen is sitting at the doctor’s office because of a stomachache. Doug enters with a bloody bandage on his face and they begin talking and getting to know each other. Kayleen tells Doug she is prone to stomachaches, and Doug tells Kayleen about how he rode off the school roof on his bicycle. Kayleen starts to examine his wounds and pick the gravel out of his hands. Scene 2: Age 23. Hospital room. Doug has just blasted his eye out with a firework. It is the middle of the night. Kayleen enters and we discover it is the day before her father’s funeral. She has been drinking and has driven her car into a ditch. Her legs are muddy as she had to walk part way to the hospital. As Kayleen and Doug talk about the evening it is revealed that they had kissed earlier (although she is currently living with a man named Brad.) As the conversation continues, Doug asks Kayleen to dance- they sway together for a few moments. Doug tells Kayleen she made the pain from his missing tooth go away when they kissed. He asks her to touch the wound where his eye used to be. Kayleen is grossed out and refuses. Doug yells at her and she leaves. Scene 3: Age 13, nurse’s office during the high school dance. Kayleen has just been vomiting. Doug enters with a sprained ankle. He tells her he wants to kiss Erin Marks, a girl upstairs at the dance. Kayleen is annoyed at Doug. He tells her they should practice kissing before each of them tries it for the first time. Finally Kayleen lets Doug kiss her, but as soon as they are done, vomits in the garbage can. She is visibly embarrassed, so Doug vomits in the can in solidarity. They look at their vomit mixed together.
Scene 4: Age 28, hospital. Doug is in a coma from being struck by lightning. Kayleen enters and tries to wake him up. It is revealed that Doug was recently engaged to be married. She admits she needs him because she’s “not great.” Scene 5: Age 18, Kayleen’s bedroom. Doug comes in with pinkeye he claims to have gotten from a girl scout. He is also in pain and beaten up as he’s just been in a fight with a boy from school. Kayleen tries to find out why he was fighting with him. It is revealed that the boy called her a slut so Doug instigated a fight in her defense. Doug finds out Kayleen has just had sex with her boyfriend for the second time. She says she didn’t want to at the time, and this upsets Doug very much. He sees blood on her pants and when she takes them off we see she’s been cutting herself. Doug asks Kayleen to cut him like she does to herself. She does. He tells her she is the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. Scene 6: Age 33, the sterile lounge of a health facility. Doug meets Kayleen who has been hospitalized for trying to cut out her own stomach. It’s been five years since they last saw each other, when Kayleen visited Doug at the hospital while he was in a coma. He brings her the owl that sat on the roof of the school where they first met. Scene 7: Age 23, outside a funeral home. Kayleen’s father is dead. It is the night of his wake. Doug shows up right after it has ended. He has been away at college. He says he’s tried to stop by and see Kayleen, but her father wouldn’t tell her where she was. She tells Doug that her mother died the year before. Doug reveals a confrontation he had with her father the year before, saying Kayleen was a gift from God that he’s never appreciated. Kayleen is moved by Doug’s care for her. He says that he could take care of her, but she refuses his love. He leaves to go light fireworks by himself. Scene 8: Age 38, an indoor ice-rink. Doug is in a wheelchair from an accident (falling off a telephone pole, where he claims he was searching for Kayleen.) He has been working as a Zamboni driver. This is the first time they have seen each other since Doug visited Kayleen at the hospital years earlier. She tries to put her hands on him and “heal him,” (as he always believed she had the power to do) but he doesn’t let her. They sit and look at the ice, and reminisce about the moment from their childhood when they vomited in the same bucket.
About the Playwright Rajiv Joseph is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and an award winning playwright. Rajiv has been called “daring, magnificent, and virtuosic” by the L.A. Times. Rajiv Joseph wrote Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (a 2010 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), Huck and Holden, Gruesome Playground Injuries, Animals Out of Paper, The Monster at the Door, and The North Pool. He is the book-writer and colyricist for the upcoming musical, Fly, adapted from JM Barrie’s novel, Peter Pan. Rajiv Joseph received his BA in Creative Writing from Miami University and his MFA in Playwriting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal, West Africa. Rajiv has been awarded a United States Artists Grant, the Whiting Award, the Glickman Award, and the National Endowment for the Arts Outstanding New American Play grant. He is currently a writer on the Showtime television series Nurse Jackie. Source: http://www.silkroadrising.org/live-theater/the-lake-effect/aboutplaywright-rajiv-joseph
A Word with the Director
“
I have wanted to work at Pacific Theatre since I arrived in Vancouver in 2007.
I've always had great respect for the work that they do and have been hungry to create a show in their unique intimate space. When my friends Pippa and Kenton worked as apprentices at Pacific I pounced on the opportunity to work with them on their apprentice show since I knew it would give me a chance to get closer to the Pacific team and to finally work in that long sought after space. And to make a show with some really talented young actors. I felt very proud of the show we created and am so thrilled that it is now a part of the Pacific season. It is rare and wonderful to get to revisit a work a year a half later and we are all looking forward to the opportunity to pick up where we left off.”
Q & A With Actors Pippa and Kenton Pippa Johnstone, playing Kayleen, and Kenton Klassen, playing Doug, answer a few questions about the show: Having done this project as an apprentice, what are you excited about this time around? How do you think it will be different? PIPPA: I am so grateful to get another chance with this beautiful play. The first time we put it on it was an apprentice project, we were lucky and passionate but short on time. This time I’m hoping we get to go deeper into the world of this strange, special friendship. We have grown more perspective over time, and I can’t wait to discover all those nuances we might have skimmed the first time. I know the show has been steeping in me for the last two years, and it’s a terrific honour that we get to do it again. KENTON: Gruesome Playground Injuries is one of those plays that invites you to keep digging deeper and deeper into the text. Rajiv Joseph's writing is active, full of imagery, specific, and still open to a certain amount of interpretation. Chelsea has made it clear that the plan is to use our last production as a launching off point as we bring it to another level and this excites me! I've started reading the play over and over again and am finding lots of new things that I want to play around with. I think that the show will be pretty similar to the 2014 production but with more clarity and specificity around certain moments. I also expect we'll dig deeper into the reality of co-dependency. Last time Pippa and I were producing as well, which uses a completely different part of the brain. I'm excited to be able to direct all of my energy in a creative direction this time around! What is one of the greatest challenges this script and these roles pose for you? PIPPA: Kayleen is a beautiful challenge for me, because she lives so deeply inside herself. It’s a gift as an actor to play someone whose world exists so far outside of my own: it’s as freeing as it is scary. Her wounds, unlike Doug’s, aren’t visible (for the most part), so it’s a wonderful challenge for my imagination to build her inner world as she struggles with her own experience of reality. It’s a beautiful thing to get to play a character from age 8 to 38, and catch up with her at these different pivotal moments and fill in the blanks in between. KENTON: This play is a marathon. Once we start we don't leave the stage. All of the transitions are very physical, involve on stage costume changes, and are a part of the narrative. There's no time to prep for the next scene, we just keep diving in over and over until it's done. The play is also non-linear; we jump back and forth between ages over a thirty-year timeline. And the characters are draining in an of themselves, physically and emotionally. We leave the stage at the end completely spent… and so sweaty. It's demanding but also exhilarating!
What is one of your favourite memories from the last performance? PIPPA: I love what this play does to the audience. We create these wounds on stage, in real time, in front of the audience, and then to have them react viscerally is a testament to the power of the suspension of disbelief. Those are the moments you can’t recreate on film, and that’s what I love about theatre. My other favourite memory has to be Ron’s reaction to the play. The show is pretty out-there, and as apprentices, it was a big risk, but Ron’s enthusiasm and enduring support was so gratifying. And then to have a spot in the mainstage season? We were totally over the moon. Thanks PT. You make my heart full. KENTON: There are some on stage moments that stand out to me and keep coming back to mind but I don't want to spoil anything. One of the critiques of the script is that it leaves the character's histories rather vague... and this is true. But I have found that because of this Rajiv Joseph's tender and hostile love story is opened up to connect personally and specifically with its audience. Some of my favourite memories are the many post show conversations I had with people relating to the story in very different yet specific ways.
The Set
“The goal of this set is to emphasize visible costume changes, facilitate quick changes in time and location, and reflect the atmosphere of the play - intimate, quirky, and reveling in injury. The set is minimalist, featuring a woven "bandage" motif and a bold red floor.” -Carolyn Rapanos, set designer
Catalogue of Injuries Each scene transition involves the careful application and reveal of Kayleen and Doug’s wounds, applied by the actors on stage. 1. Doug “breaks his face” playing Evel Knievel jumping off the school roof on his bicycle 2. Doug blows his eye out with a firework 3. Kayleen has been vomiting, Doug has a sprained ankle from “rocking out” at the high school dance 4. Doug is in a coma from being struck by lightning 5. Doug has pinkeye and is beaten up from a fight, Kayleen has been cutting herself 6. Kayleen has tried to cut her stomach out, Doug has fallen through a weak board on the roof of their old school. His foot was pierced by an eight inch nail, just before falling through another board and breaking his leg in three places 7. Doug is in a wheelchair from falling off the top of a telephone pole
Information on Self-Harm According to a report by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) released in 2014: “There has been a major increase in the rate of intentional self-harm-related hospitalizations among Canadian girls in the past five years.” The report “found a notable difference between the rate of self-harm-related hospitalizations for girls and boys. While the rate for girls jumped from 78 to 164 per 100,000 girls -- an increase of 110 per cent -- the rate for boys increased by 35 per cent, from 23 to 32 per 100,000. The data revealed that out of the 17,500 Canadian children who were hospitalized for injuries in 2013-14, about 3,000 of those hospitalizations were for intentional injury, with 2,500 cases a result of self-harm and 500 cases a result of injury caused by others. CIHI found that girls were four times more likely to be hospitalized for selfharm-related injuries than boys. Out of the 2,500 children aged 10 to 17 hospitalized last year as a result of self-harm, 80 per cent were girls. The rate of girls who were hospitalized for self-harm with a sharp object -making small cuts to their bodies, usually on the arms and legs -- also went up 90 per cent in the past five years.” Megan Schellenberg, who self-harmed as a teenager and now works with the Mental Health Commission of Canada as knowledge broker says: “Self-injury does not equate to suicide attempts or even suicidality… People aren’t cutting themselves because they want attention … It’s just so important for people to know that this is a coping mechanism.” - http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/self-harm-cases-among-canadian-girls-up-110cihi-report-1.2107791
According to the Canadian Mental Health Association: Some people self-injure: • • • • • • • •
To cope with anxiety or depression To cope with loss, trauma, violence, or other difficult situations To ‘punish’ themselves To turn emotional pain into physical pain To feel ‘real’ and counter feelings of emptiness or numbness To feel euphoria To regain control of their bodies To simply feel better
- https://www.cmha.ca/mental_health/youth-and-self-injury/ “More and more of the kids don’t have what we might call a severe mental illness or a severe substance use disorder but instead are really experiencing sort of a crisis of meaning in their lives or an inability to handle their negative emotions except by cutting,” Kathleen Pajer, the chief of the department of psychiatry at IWK Health Centre in Ottawa, said in an interview with Global news. - http://globalnews.ca/news/1678914/an-epidemic-of-self-harm-why-are-morecanadian-youth-hurting-themselves/
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What do you think keeps drawing Doug & Kayleen back together? 2. Kayleen is very certain that she does not want to be responsible for healing Doug. Why do you think that is? 3. What do you think the message of the play is? 4. How do you think the play connects to Pacific Theatre’s mandate? 5. How do the injuries Doug and Kayleen suffer from mimic their internal wounds? 6. From what we learned from the above section on self-harm – why do you think Kayleen cuts herself? 7. Have you ever known anyone with the sense of invincibility that Doug has? Do you view that as a good trait, or a bad trait?