“Bang, Bang, You’re Dead!” the AU Players fall season opener, begins not with a bang but with music. Orchestral notes sweep through the dark corner of the Katzen parking garage that serves as the performance’s stage, followed by the eerie echo of laughter.
The unconventional staging of “Bang, Bang” allows for the play’s exploration of the mind of a school shooter to surpass audience expectations, creating a jarring but personal performance.
Playwright William Mastrosime wrote “Bang, Bang” in response to a school shooting. Its story articulates the innerworkings of the mind of the main character, Josh, played by Steve Literati. To do this, the play jumps back and forth in time to explore the progression of isolation and anger that leads to the shooting and its aftermath of inescapable guilt. The play often feels like a contemporary version of “Crime and Punishment,” with writing that gives greater weight to the interior anguish of the main character than the more conventional drama of the shootings themselves.
Such topical subject matter prompts certain expectations among both the audience and the actors. This is a generation that has been bombarded with news about school violence. The trend of violence has shaped our sense of security and the ways we interact with others in our day-to-day lives.
Told with powerful rhythm and fluidity, the play manages to move the audience from their preconceived notions about school shootings and their perpetrators. As a result, the play’s subject matter assumes a new context and resonance, as well a new capacity for building understanding.
Director Austin Byrd, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he worked with the cast to build trust and overcome personal experiences with school violence.
“If everyone on stage hated Josh, it would not be an interesting show,” he said.
Byrd also worked with his cast to develop movement that would help give the play’s characters greater specificity without sacrificing the performance’s rhythm. The play isn’t simply told from Josh’s perspective — it also serves to act out scenes from his mind.
“The play would lose its flow if there were different sets for each scene,” Byrd said. “Instead, we used actors to create the rhythm and ethereal atmosphere.”
The play’s characters transition from being “real” to being figments of Josh’s imagination. These characters are the embodiment of Josh’s emotion: the eerie echo of their laughter in the parking garage suggests the permanence of his guilt. They are singular characters, but also manifestations of Josh’s inner turmoil.
Balancing the psychological exploration of the play with the need for traditional character development was particularly challenging, Byrd said.
“The ensemble is important,” he said. “But the challenge was creating individual characters.”
The unconventional stage of the Katzen parking garage jars the audience from their expectations about the performance. Removing the play from a more traditional theater space forces the audience to come at the subject matter and the play itself from a different perspective.
Byrd admitted, however, that the space created its own unique artistic challenges, especially with lighting.
“The space creates fear,” he said. “It makes the audience travel the same journey as Josh.”
Above all, Byrd said that he hopes the work encourages his audience to develop a new perspective on those who perpetrate school shootings, a perspective grounded in understanding rather than alienation.
Purposeful directing and jarring use of setting allow Josh’s thoughts to develop unexpected poignancy and resonance.
“The play is an attempt to understand,” Byrd said. “And to get the conversation [about school violence] started.”
“Bang, Bang, You’re Dead!” started Thursday, Oct. 1 and runs through Saturday, Oct. 3.
You can reach this staff writer at thescene@theeagleonline.com.
