Gruesome Playground Injuries Off-Broadway Reviews

But while Young, one of New York’s most fascinating stage actors, is enrapturing in the first scene, that is by far the high point of this tantalizingly tricky play. Braun, seeming subdued and less than comfortable in the role, does not match her, and the show overall is too often curiously flat. Neither its sometimes pitch-black sense of humor nor its characters’ bond and brokenness are fully realized. The synergy isn’t there, at least not yet; that might come with time.

‘Gruesome Playground Injuries’ is not an easy play; it’s nonlinear, messy, and intentionally unresolved. But that lends it power. The scenes accumulate like fragments of memory, adding up to something quietly devastating. When the play clicks, it does so with startling emotional clarity.

Without question, both Young and ‘Succession’ star Nicholas Braun, in a stunning New York theater debut, make a much more persuasive case for the play than the show’s production at Second Stage did back in 2010. But the work still often feels a bit too much like an acting exercise rather than a fully realized drama, despite the pair’s protean efforts (which includes moving around the two beds that are the main feature of Arnulfo Maldonado’s spare set and changing in and out of Sarah Laux’s well-chosen costumes in full view of the audience).

Still, it can be hard to make sense of the show’s central conceit — that these childhood buddies are only connecting in five-year increments when one or the other is in a moment of crisis — or to glean an overriding message that justifies the time we’re spending in the company of this star-crossed not-quite couple. Gruesome Playground Injuries mostly succeeds as an acting exercise, where the performers can throw themselves (sometimes literally) into showy recklessness.

The title warns you: This show is not for the squeamish. Brian Strumwasser's makeup design is impressively, grossly realistic, from cuts on Kayleen's leg to Doug's bloody eye socket (this isn't really a spoiler). I was almost surprised that the instances of vomit are only mimed. The show is not even 90 minutes, though, so like a flu shot, the pain and bleeding will be over before you know it.

Braun, who acquits himself well, may be a stage novice, but he’s smart enough to know that the way to raise his game is by going toe-to-toe with one of the best in the business: back-to-back Tony winner (Purpose, Purlie Victorious) and consecutive four-year nominee Kara Young. Playing Kayleen at age 8, bouncing on the bed in her pigtails and school uniform, sighing overdramatically, swinging her feet, calling Doug ‘stupid’ and telling him to ‘shut up’—basic 8-year-old things—she wins our hearts immediately.

In the first scene, Young delivers the best performance by an adult actor of a child character since Anika Noni Rose played a kid in the original 2003 production of “Caroline, or Change.” Braun isn’t quite as convincing – who would be? – but he’s admirably effective playing a little boy despite this actor being over six feet tall.