By Cory-LaNeave Jones
April 15, 2025
Gruesome Playground Injuries is not real life. It’s a play about real life. The performers are with Loud Fridge Theatre Company. The location is Tenth Avenue Arts Center.
Any resemblance between the size of the actors’ physical or emotional scars, and the relationships in your rear-view mirror, or in your memory are completely coincidental. ATTENTION: Please do not step out of the trainwreck car when it is in motion.
Some people watch train wrecks. Other “peoples” lives are quite undoubtedly train wrecks and the fodder for gossip columns; Dear Hedda Hopper, Arianna Huffington, Wendy Williams, TMZ, Jason Lee – eat your hearts out…
This play intends to discuss various injuries that people can – and do – move through, in this life. This play allows us to hopefully, reflect more fully on how we deal with traumatic experiences in life, be those physical or emotional. Be sure to batten down your emotional support weighted blanket before entering the theatre for this one, parental guidance may be required, depending on your relationship with your parents – that is. In some cases, this may require the imagination to dream up an actual parent figure that can provide the required support that you need.
Regardless of your home-life situation, playwright Rajiv Joseph has transported us all in this barely-dark comedic tragedy – comedic that is if you can joke about all of the most tragic parts of your life. For me, I get it. I use humor to make fun of all of the crummy parts that I’ve had to deal with. I cover my insecurities and my inadequacies with humor. It sometimes burns me when people misinterpret my humor for not caring when in fact it’s just my own antiquated coping mechanism.
In the case of Gruesome Playground Injuries, Ranjiv tells the story of two besties from back in the day. Douglas (played by Nicolas A. Castillo) and Kayleen (played by Lark Ashley Laudenslager) start their idiosyncratic empathetic rapport at the young age of 8. Then we follow a Memento-like or perhaps Rocky Horror time-warp dance between the various ages that these two tragically-bonded souls have commiserated in, including a somewhat similar convalescence.
Doug’s heart becomes wounded over time as he cannot convince Kayleen of his intense need to bond with her and of his ability to help her deal with her own lack of emotional clarity. She has a moment of clarity later in life, after Doug has attempted to jump off buildings on his bike, and after he has attempted to “pop-off” fireworks “I’ve got a mess of them in my trunk. Killer, too. The Japanese shit.”
This play asks – Are you injured? In the current political climate, this question has become central to one’s relation to society. It reminds me of artist Alfonso Gonzalez Jr.’s series of advertisements on public benches with iconic symbols of urban America. The signs invite the viewer to reflect on the liminal senses between the emotional, mental, and physical states of non-White Americans, especially the Latino and Chicano cultures in LA..
Gruesome Playground Injuries asks about something deeper than just our physical safety. As Ranjiv states in Doug’s lyrics: “Are you ok?” to which, Kayleen eventually responds “F*$# Off.” For some reason, when someone responds to a question demonstrating empathy with stark severe lucid language, you know you’ve hit on a critical moment – something that likely stirs both the ego and the heart.
Nicolas nailed these moments in the performance and Lark Ashley also showed depth in her emotional transitions from discussing the difficulties of not having a strong family base to rely on for emotional support and her drive to cope with alcohol and drugs and self harm (cutting). Their relationship luckily did not end up the way of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, but Doug and Kayleen did have similar moments of kindness and support for one another in their various stages of addiction. Nicolas addicted to acting out in order to elicit attention, and Kayleen addicted to pills, alcohol, and other depressants that create a physical “release” from the emotional pain she could not otherwise put her finger on.
The production has a great creative team, from the director, Kaylin Saur, the projection designer and producer, Estefania Ricalde, the Stage Manager, Aaronne Louis-Charles, the set designer, Michael Wogulis, costume designer, Heather K Nunn, sound designer, Eliza Vedar, and lighting designer, Karelle Arcedera, intimacy coordinator, Kandace Crystal, props master, Jamie Krumenacker, and carpenter, Spencer Weiss. The makeup and special effects successfully showed Doug’s various methods of showing off and getting hurt.
An exceptional element of the performance was the physicality of the actors as they transitioned between the non-linear time sequences of their relationship. The actors would change and do their own makeup in front of a mirror in front of the stage and employ a significantly interesting interlude by adding character to each application of makeup. Every ache and pain could be both felt, heard, and seen with each drop of blood and scar tissue applied. Quite an interesting approach to the story telling.
I had the delightful opportunity to chat with the director before the show and here is a snippet of our chat:
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
I wasn’t as familiar with the playwright Rajiv Joseph [before seeing this] – So, [as I understand it,] there’s these two individuals, Doug and Kayleen, and over time get to know each other better and develop some form of bond. And so that’s the shortest narrative I think you could probably take on this. What drew you to wanting to put this [play] together?
Kaylin Saur:
So as an actor, but especially as a director, I love intimate stories about relationships. I think that I, why we fall in love and what causes and creates connection for us, especially as adults, when these things are very complicated is one of the biggest joys and pains and mysteries of being a human being. And this story is one in which love is not easy. It’s complicated. And one of the things that has always fascinated me most is the way that when we meet someone, when we connect with someone, when we decide that someone means something to us, we decide we assign meaning to that. And then we spend the rest of our time connecting with them trying to figure out what we mean to each other, that we write stories in our heads about what a relationship will be, what it could become. But we each write those stories independently. We can only live in our own minds.
And so when we first connect with someone, even when that connection is very powerful, we can have a very, very strong connection with someone without being entirely on the same page. And I think that most of the interpersonal hurt in adult life comes from mismatches like that. And it’s one of the most human and heart-wrenching things I know is that you can care for someone so deeply and also not be getting everything that you want or not be able to make the connection in the way that you want to and trying to figure out how do you solve that can be a day’s worth of work or a lifetime’s worth of work depending on who all is involved.
So that’s why I love this story. .. it’s a complex relationship story. It’s not simple, it’s not idealized. These are two people who are very human and they make mistakes sometimes they’re very kind to each other, sometimes they really hurt each other, and they are both, despite that they make mistakes. They’re both always trying their best. There is no evil villain in this story. They’re both doing their best to get what they want and what they need. And they do have this real deep caring for each that also informs that. And so trying to balance what you need with what someone else needs with this sort of magnetic connection that you have between the two of you, just trying to figure out where to put all that is this huge challenge that it takes them 30 years to resolve. And especially when you grow up with somebody like that, that bond is so deep that it takes on a life of its own. And that’s something that I have always thought is really powerful.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
So these two, you’re mentioning that they’ve known each other for a long time. [It’s] from eight to 38, is that right?
Kaylin Saur:
Yeah, so I’d actually love to talk about that a little bit. The other thing that I love about this play, it’s unusual structure. The play takes place over the course of 30 years of their lives. The kids, as the playwright calls them meet at the age of eight. And the last thing, the play takes place when they’re 38 years old, but we do not see, and so the play is made of eight scenes over the course of those 30 years, but we don’t see them in sequential order. We don’t see them in the order that these characters would’ve lived them. We see them, we skip either 15 years forward or 10 years back in each subsequent scenes. So it goes, lemme see, it goes age 8, 23, 13, 28, 18, 33 if I’m doing my math right, age 23, [and then] 38. Yeah. That’s how that goes. And so there’s this element of mystery in this play because we don’t see it in order. And so the events do not unfold necessarily in a way that makes sense. We don’t necessarily see the cause and effect very directly.
And so we get to spend huge portions of the play going, okay, I saw what I think is the end of a fight. How did that start? How do we get to that place? I don’t know. And then we get to learn that over the course of the play. And for me, it makes it really interesting in getting to viscerally feel that question, how did we get here? Which I think is the question that I at least have asked myself a lot in complex situations, particularly relationship situations as an adult, how did I get here? And I dunno if you’ve ever had the experience of waking up one day, how did this happen? Looking back on your relationship with someone,
How did we get to this place? Whether it’s good or bad; how did we get here? And this play and having it structured this way let’s us feel that in real time as the audience we’re constantly learning. How did they get here?
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
It sounds like there’s this kind of almost Memento disorientation with time.
Kaylin Saur:
A little bit, yeah, because it does skip around like that and keeping track of the times. There’s only one age that we see twice. It mostly skips around.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
The 23, 23.
Kaylin Saur:
Yes. But when you come see it, you still get to be surprised. And anyone who reads your article will as well. …we see pain is a theme that is so present here. And again, that’s part of what makes us such a human story and feel so real to me despite some sort of incredible elements because it is dramatized obviously. But I think this play does a really good job of showing us how the pain that we carry with us, that did not come from a relationship, that we are presently participating in affects that relationship.
And Doug, there are only two characters in this play. It’s just the two of them the whole time. And the play makes no effort to show us any of their lives outside of the moments when they are each other. And in fact, there are also huge spans of time where we know they did spend time together that we skip over. So the play really focuses on only the most defining moments of their relationship. And so we get to see, and in a relationship that long, especially one that involves complex romantic feelings, you do hurt each other. There’s just no world in which don’t, if you are any level of intimate with someone for that long and you’re vulnerable with each other,
People get hurt even when we’re doing our best. And so there are definitely injuries that occur between the two of them, but we also get to see the ways in which the stuff that they bring with them from outside affects what is happening right here between ’em, which is something that I think is really interesting about their connection: The ways that the connections that we have with someone are not controlled only by what happens between us and that other person – They are affected by the rest of us and the rest of who we are – And the other things we’ve experienced. There is also very literal physical injury in this show. Rajiv Joseph has done a really interesting job with one of Doug’s character, he’s a deeply physical person. He’s deeply accident prone, so he’s often literally physically hurt. And most of the scenes in the play take place in the context of one of Doug’s injuries, something that they can see.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
[Sounds like ] He’s like a “Mr. Glass” kind of character…
Kaylin Saur:
Little bit, yeah, he’s very, very accident prone. He’s often hurt, but he does have a high pain tolerance. And so he is not, he’s sort of fine with it sometimes.
We have this interesting interplay where she is the person who is there for him in those times, and this creates a vulnerability between them that allows them to open up. And then we get to see when is she able to respond to that vulnerability with vulnerability of our own. And so the physical Injuries act as sort of a time clock for us, on where are we in time, [and] what is going on. And it allows us to, and I think the reason the playwright has centered on it is that it allows us to visualize the emotional wounds.
And I am actually an effects makeup artist, and I’m also the makeup designer for this show. And one of the things that I’ve done here that I’m really excited about is we have taken a more literal sort of realistic approach to the injuries rather than going more abstract with them and stylized, because I think the images of the physical injury help, they give us another medium to understand the emotional wounds the characters are experiencing because we can see pain on them as well as hearing it in their words.
It was really crazy when we got into technical rehearsals, when we had the actors wearing the full makeup, the way that it changed what this story means to see the fake blood, to see the bruises, to see all these things. It really changes the context of some of these scenes to realize that there is a bodily injury happening as well here. So yeah, I’m excited for you to see it. It comes together as a really interesting piece that way.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
So… it’s more issues of how do you deal with, like you were saying, the emotional baggage you bring in and can you relate with other people’s emotional baggage?
Kaylin Saur:
Yeah… pain is a theme in this show. It’s about how pain reveals vulnerability for us. Think about times when, for example, if you are struggling at work, you’re having a really hard day, maybe you’re distressed or near tears, you have to make the choice, “do I let people see me cry?”
And that’s a hugely vulnerable choice to make, and if you let people see you cry, in that moment, they know things about you they didn’t know before. Your relationship with those people is now different because you made the choice to let them see your pain.
And so Rajiv has represented that both physically and emotionally in this play, that pain reveals us, and that’s a really strong theme and that we have to decide what to do with this new relationship we have now that we’ve revealed part of ourselves.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
Yeah, it’s strange for me as I get a little older, I find that I have a higher tendency for those tear ducts to do what they do. And I don’t know if it’s me knowing myself better or if it’s just a fact of being older and that just happens,
Kaylin Saur:
Or being more tired.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
Or having, like you’re saying, having gone through long-term relationships that left plenty battle scars of their own. I can understand a lot of what you’re talking about here.
So yeah, this is [a production] through Loud Fridge. Can you tell me a little bit more about the company and your background with the company and how many shows you typically do a season, a year, and how long you’ve been involved?
Kaylin Saur:
So Loud Fridge is a relatively young theater company.
This is our third full main stage season.
We are doing two main stage shows this year, as well as six or seven second stage shows, as well as unveiling our new play development initiative, which is called New Year New Draft, which supports a local San Diego County playwright.
This year’s playwright is Nick Scootie with his play No Exit to Mars to finish. Basically, they submit the beginnings of a script and then we help them finish it and give it a staged reading with actors and workshop weekends and a playwright mentor and all that.
So we’re doing, our three facets this year are main stage, second stage, which are single evening performances, and then the new year, new draft.
And I’ve been involved with Loud Fridge since, let’s see, that would be October of 2023, so coming up on two years. At this point, I am currently sitting board president as well as the producer of our “Mini-Fridge,” which is our second stage production series.
Loud Fridge is based strongly around hyper-local inclusion. The phrase that we often use is we’re committed to using performing arts to make noise in San Diego. And what that means to us is inclusive collaboration, both in our casting, in our designing, producing, and directing that we are uplifting local artists, specifically from San Diego County and surrounding areas.
We don’t hire out of state from New York or any of that. We believe that there is plenty of local talent here and that we should be paying those artists, that professional level artists exist here and we should be treating them as professionals and then creating theatrical experiences that are accessible to people.
And again, that focuses around financial accessibility. One of the biggest thing that sets us apart is what we call our “Open Fridge Policy,” which means that tickets to every production or season main stage, second stage, new play development are free of charge with optional donations.
We always really appreciate that those who are able to give do, and what we found is that non-profit theater is so reliant on private donors and grants anyway, that we don’t get a lot of utility out of shutting people out because they can’t pay for a ticket.
It is more important that people have access to this thing, that people, and especially right now, in a time when art programs are being cut all over the country, when these kinds of experiences are not accessible to most people, they just simply do not have access.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
I don’t know if you can use the term “accessible,” if there’s isn’t any federal funding anymore. We’ll see about that.
Kaylin Saur:
Yeah. We actually made the choice not to apply for federal funding this year because frankly, our mission is so inclusivity-based that we thought the odds that we would get those grants is pretty small.
But we’re very grateful that our community locally supports us and there are other granting bodies granting organizations that support what we do outside of government funding. So that’s what we’re about— is this belief in local theater and that we can just practice inclusivity right now, both in the stories that we’re telling, in the people that we’re hiring and in the environment and community that we’re creating, in the rooms that we run, that we’re listening to our artists, we’re listening to our collaborators that we’re hearing them and trying to hear everyone’s story basically.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
So local inclusion and local conversation is what you’re trying to drive – sounds like, by allowing all the voices to be present. So, is there any particular discussion you hope you’re hoping to be picked up by this particular piece?
Kaylin Saur:
Yeah, so this piece, like I said, I pitched it as a director because I think it’s a very human story. Our community partner on the show, we do try to have a community partner for every show is actually a therapy practice, Hella Good Therapy, and they are an inclusive therapy practice that prioritizes serving clients for marginalized groups. They’re based in Mission Hills, and they’ll actually be coming to give a talk back on Sunday the 13th.
The conversation that I hope people are having with themselves when they leave the theater is reflective. It’s about, okay, I’ve just watched this thing happen on stage and this crazy connection these people have and all the way that it affects them.
We all have a story of a connection that affected us in ways we didn’t expect for better or for worse. That’s a deeply, and the thing that people tell me about when they read the script or when they see the story is, wow, that’s relatable. Even though there are crazy things that happen in this show.
And so part of the reason we wanted to bring them in is because like I said, the characters do make choices that are bad for them, and I think it’s a really interesting way to have a conversation… and watch those consequences happen. I always hope with theater I get to see stories so I don’t have to live that story.
Right?
Hopefully sometimes we see a piece and go, wow, that’s a fantasy. I wish my life was like that. But a lot of times we see a piece and go, wow, those people are terrible. I hope that never happens to me.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
Or I’m glad it’s not that bad [for me]. Yeah, right.
Kaylin Saur:
I’m glad it’s not that bad. I’m glad I didn’t make that mistake or, wow, I have made that mistake. I’m glad the consequences weren’t that bad for me, whatever it is.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
Yeah, no, I really like that you’re bringing in the local therapy group. That’s pretty positive. I think that’s a great idea, especially …
Kaylin Saur:
There’s something with this thing, bringing [people] in to basically facilitate a conversation about, okay, we’ve seen this thing happen.
How do these things happen?
Why do they happen?
What are our psychological needs that feed these dynamics again, both good and bad?
How do I recognize this in myself after I saw this play and go, oh, shit, that feels like me.
What do I do? What do I do next? Or do I have a goal of connecting better?
How do I do that?
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
Yeah. Am I being rational? Am I all in my head, or am I jumping to my own conclusions, or am I getting proper feedback from people outside of myself? Right? At least that’s been a common theme for myself in the past.
Kaylin Saur:
Absolutely. Absolutely. How much do I listen to other people is always, I think that’s a thing we just deal with as human beings all the time. What is in my head and what is outside and what is real? What is objective? Does it matter? Because we only live in our own heads. The other thing that’s worth noting is that this play does deal with some heavy mental health themes. Kayleen, as a character is, it is in the text from the word go, deeply depressed, and we do have an onstage depiction of self-harm in this show. There is a content warning at the box office for people. And so I also wanted to bring in Hella Good Therapy because that’s a real thing that people deal with, and it is not something that is very often depicted on stage, and it’s frankly not something that is very often depicted without judgment.
I think this play is really interesting in that it shows Kayleen’s depression, but does not punish her for it. It does not judge her for it. It’s just a thing she is dealing with. And so I hope that it creates a space of compassionate conversation where people can see themselves in this play and feel seen rather than scrutinized.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
Right, right. Is there anything else? Humor, I read something about there being some dark humor portrayed. I mean, sometimes humor can sometimes just be a coping mechanism for dealing with difficult issues, and other times it can be taken the wrong way if someone’s sarcasms is misinterpreted. How so in this one, how do you find humor utilized? Or is that maybe not so much of a focus of your version?
Kaylin Saur:
It’s not a comedy. It does have funny moments. And again, I keep coming back to the word human. When I talk about this play, one of the things that I love about it is that it has funny moments that human beings are funny even when we’re hurting.
And actually the casting of this show has been interesting this way.
Both of our actors, despite doing a lovely job with this play, actually very funny people, and their dynamic together is actually primarily a playful one. And it was something that I looked for when I was casting because I think that there are, the sad parts of the script are obvious, and it was really important to me that these are still whole people. And that means that even when they’re sad, even when things are difficult, they are funny sometimes. They do laugh together and in order for their connection to feel real and for us to want them to figure it out, we have to see that we have to see – moments of real joy. Because if there’s no, I’ve seen plays before that are about a complex relationship, particularly romantic ones where there is very little joy. It’s just serious and scary the whole time. And it’s not that. Those dynamics aren’t real. They don’t exist. But usually when we stay in something for 30 years, it’s because there is something joyful about it.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
It could be that, or it could just be avoidance.
Kaylin Saur:
Great. It absolutely can be. But my thought was that 30 years is a long time to hold onto that much avoidance if there’s nothing joyful ever. And there are definitely scenes where the joy is few and far between. There are scenes where it’s [Joy is] gone entirely, but there are also scenes that prioritize that. And it was something that I like about Rjiv Joseph’s work is that both of those things can be present at the same time, and it’s something actually that the characters really bring to each other. It’s a clear need that we can see from them that they need joy and they need laughter, and that sometimes that’s what they’re able to give to each other, and that’s why this is valuable to them. It does have funny moments. It has some deeply silly moments. Rajiv Joseph has written- the funny moments are very silly. They’re not, especially because we see them young, we see them at ages eight, 13 and 18. Some of their jokes are very stupid. They’re very 13-year-old, you will have to come see it to find out. But the 13-year-old teen particularly has a lot of those where the audience laughs. But it’s definitely the laughter of adults at Children of Wow, I would never do that now. And I’ve had people say to me when they’ve seen the preview that they said, I can remember doing that kind of stuff when I was a kid or somebody doing that kind of stuff around me. Obviously, I would never now, but I can remember what that was like, obviously.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
Yeah, right. So yeah, so I’m excited to see this. Seems like there’s a lot there.
Yeah. So, how has your background informed the production?
Kaylin Saur:
The way that [my background] really informs this story is that something interesting about this play is that in addition to being non-sequential, the playwright has written that all of these scene changes and costume changes take place on stage in front of the audience, and they’re all done by the actors. There are no stage-hands. And what that means is that we have portions between the scenes where there is no dialogue, and these things take time. It takes time to change clothes, it takes time to change makeup, it takes time to move, sit around, and there needs to be something for the audience to watch while that’s happening. I read the script and I went, oh, that’s not between the story. That’s also the story.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
And so is that called a “no-logue”? [As opposed to a monologue or a diaglogue, etc.]
What do we call it when no one’s speaking [in a play]?
Kaylin Saur:
I mean, I just call it physical theater. I don’t think I have a word for it, but my background in circus acrobatics and clowning as well as in drag performance, means that I am used to telling most of my stories without text, with breath, with physical action, with facial expression. And so that was something that I was really excited to bring to wrestle with because that’s actually my first area of training expertise – well before traditional acting and [I could] sort of push these actors in that direction and help them bring all of the emotion that they’re bringing to the text – to these non-verbal moments, and designing those with the makeup and the costumes and all those things is something that I was really excited about and felt like was something I could do well in a way that people with a different background might not be able to.
Cory-LaNeave Jones:
Right. That’s cool. Well… I’m really looking forward to checking it out.
…
And it was well worth it. I highly recommend you check this one out.
Gruesome Playground Injuries is playing at 10th Avenue Arts Centre at 930 Tenth Avenue, 92101 from now until April 26th.
