Tag Archives: Rajiv Joseph

Gruesome Playgound Injuries

27 Apr

TAP Gallery is a Sydney treasure, a place truly dedicated to art. I was witness to so many beautiful pieces of theatre at the old TAP, when it was on Palmer Street. Well, it’s long moved to Riley Street, and there’s no micro-theatre anymore – but there’s still the potential for brilliant theatrical work to be done here.

Unorthodox Productions are currently presenting Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries.

It’s a 75 minute two-hander, an exploration of pain and its cure. In eight non-chronological scenes, the play covers a thirty year span in the relationship between Kayleen and Doug. These two are injured in so many ways, some of them physical.

It’s not really a narrative, or at least it doesn’t privilege narrative. It’s fun to try to guess the links between the scenes, but I don’t think that’s the point of the nonconventional structure. By not asking us to focus on the development of the relationship, it lifts it beyond time, and highlights the transcendent nature of love. The genius of the piece is that this spiritual transcendence is juxtaposed so clearly with the physical: what stronger reminder of human fragility and ephemerality can there be than injury? And the junction between these two spheres of Life – the miraculous place where the spiritual meets the physical – is beautifully evoked by the suggestion that wholeness may be gifted by a touch.

Director Brea Macey makes effective use of the simple space. Darya Miroshnikova and Chris Stamoulous give truly committed performances and are entirely present as they explore the complexity of the characters (though some variation in pace might bring out more of the script’s rich humour.)

I have to admit I find something deeply thrilling about productions like this. Find a space. Share Beauty and Truth. Don’t wait for permission. Sydney needs more of it.

Paul Gilchrist

Gruesome Playground Injuries by Rajiv Joseph

Presented by Unorthodox Productions

at Tap Gallery until May 3

Tickets www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1538915

Image by Simon Pearce

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King James

17 Jun

This is a wonderful production of a wonderful play.

It’s also one of the funniest, most joyous, serious plays I’ve seen.

I mean this: though grounded in realism, the territory explored by Rajiv Joseph’s King James is exuberance.

Two men become friends through a shared enthusiasm for the Cleveland Cavaliers and its star player LeBron James. These men need each other, but no relationship remains static or fixed.

It’s sometimes suggested that male friendships are shallow because they consist of two men looking in a similar direction rather than at each other. But there’s something to be said for not staring too closely at the other person. After all, there is no essential truth to see. The assertion I know you completely is not love; it’s control. All of us change, and any attempt to definitively sum up or categorise an individual is misguided. Each of us is more a happening than a thing. The essential you is just a careless, or convenient, construct.

The scene in which Joseph has the issue of race raise its ugly head is a masterclass in this type of richness in dramatic writing. To witness these two extremely likable characters tear at each other is heart-rending. In any play, the conflict can represent a wider cultural tension, but if we don’t feel it in all its irreducible messiness in the actual characters, if we read it solely as a critique of society, what’s the real takeaway? That individuals are of little value. The glory of theatre is that it’s fundamentally existential; it knows that Life is what happens to you while you’re otherwise occupied maintaining some grand narrative. (There was a logical consistency in the Puritan dislike of theatre. They understood what it had in common with the Prince of Darkness; like the Devil, Life is in the details.)

Directed by Bali Padda, the performances by Aaron Glenane and Tinashe Mangwana are brilliant. They portray beautifully characters who are gorgeously vulnerable, the desire for an ongoing relationship carefully and doggedly navigating friendship’s envies, awkwardnesses and sensitivities. This wary gentleness is brought into glorious relief by tremendous bursts of jubilant energy (including one extraordinarily fun scene change.) Designer Ian Kanik does a terrific job creating the play’s two settings in the Old Fitz space (and filling them with some oddly specific, but absolutely, crucial props.)

Joseph’s dialogue is superb. The affectionate raillery between the two men is pitch perfect. Who is the G.O.A.T? Michael Jordan or LeBron James? And equally delightful are the hyperbolic expressions of fanatic admiration. The claim that James is capable of teleportation nails the glee with which sports fans manage to find glimmers in a world where others see only triggers.

But, no, don’t worry. You don’t need to know anything about basketball. You don’t even need to like sport.

The joy of this show is utterly infectious.  

Paul Gilchrist

King James by Rajiv Joseph

at The Old Fitz until Jun 29

oldfitztheatre.com.au

Image by Daniel Asher Smith

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