GUN PLAYS
That gun crimes are epidemic in this country is a given. You need only throw open your window at night to figure that out. Everybody seems to be packing one. And not just the crazies and the gang members. Your taxi driver’s got one hidden under his seat. Your friendly local convenience-store owner has one in the register. Your neighbor has a big one up on his wall for hunting and another stashed in his dresser for burglars.
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In Brian Quinette’s Gun Plays, performed by Renegade Theatre at Red Bones Theatre, the curtain is raised on a nightmare vision of society where everyone has a ready-to-fire weapon at his disposal. The play comprises five short “gun plays” by Quinette interwoven with dance sequences and short scenes developed by Renegade Theatre. Inserted between scenes are monologues written by Chicago poet and playwright Silvia Gonzalez S. and delivered by a character named Angel–who also slips in and out of scenes, observing and commenting, connecting them together.
The dance sequences, performed to hard thumping music on a surprisingly good sound system, are quite watchable but not exactly subtle. Having the entire company point guns at the audience is a cheap scare tactic and reeks of overkill–it’s manipulating the power of firearms to make a dramatic point. You don’t have to shoot a dog to get someone to buy a magazine, and you don’t have to point a gun at somebody to get him to listen.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Dan Bakke.
