Seat Filler

Gruesome Playground Injuries
In Nurse Jackie scribe Rajiv Joseph’s uniquely unsettling two-hander about a very unhealthy relationship, Dying City’s Pablo Schreiber and Dexter’s Jennifer Carpenter display great range as friends who measure their lives in stitches, scars, and hospital stints from ages 8 to 38. Eyes get burned, faces get split, and legs get sliced with box-cutters, but out director Scott Ellis bandages up all the unsightly pain with comforting grace.
Second Stage Theatre, through February 20.

American Sexy
The Flea’s young resident acting company, the Bats, are in top form, but the kids are not all right in Trista Baldwin's tense and disturbing play about four pot-smoking college kids camping at the Grand Canyon en route to Vegas. Satomi Blair and Nicky Schmidlein star as Lexi and Jessica, frenemies who mock-hump each other — and a blow-up doll — to titillate the guys, mask deep insecurities, and desperately indulge Lexi’s lesbian longing.
The Flea Theater Downstairs, through February 22.