NPX Weekly Round-Up: Gunplay, A Play About America by Frank Higgins

How do we use our art to confront tragedy?

Sep 09, 2024

Content warnings for discussions of gun violence, specifically mass shootings in America.

Yesterday (September 4th) it happened again.

You guessed it— another angry white boy brought a gun into a school and murdered people.

There comes a point, perhaps over and over and over again, where we must reckon with the fact that this happens every day in America. Sometimes, more than once a day. As of writing this (September 5th, 2024), there have been 385 mass shootings so far this year. That’s 1.5 mass shootings per day.

When does it stop? The answer appears to be “never”.

As an artist, a writer, and a teacher, I don’t feel that I have the traditional skills or access that one would need to effectively do something about this. But, like anyone else, I have my voice. And as a writer, I know how to use it. No matter if you’re a playwright, actor, other artist, or just a “regular” person, you do too.

I thought long and hard about what to do this week, if I wanted to just ignore everything and cover a different play, or if I wanted to address it. For some reason I felt like I owed it to someone, who I don’t know, to face the issue head on in the main way I know how: through art.

So, this week, I read Gunplay: A Play About America by Frank Higgins. This play is actually published through Samuel French, but is also available for free download through NPX.

Here is the summary:

A mosaic of scenes and monologues about guns in American life, stretching from the nation's founding up to contemporary times. The play is a full length evening, but scenes and monologues can be cherry picked to fill a shorter program. Several scenes were read on Capitol Hill just prior to Congress's vote on the Brady Bill.

The Brady Bill is otherwise known as the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. It was rejected twice before being signed into law in 1994 by Bill Clinton. This is a bill that makes background checks required as a part of buying a firearm from a federally licensed business (can you believe THAT was rejected TWICE??).

If only that had been enough. If only people could only access guns in that one, very legal way.

Higgins utilizes multiple vignettes from multiple points of view to articulate not only the devastation of gun violence, but how complex this issue can be and has been across the history of the country. It is not always perfect (it was written over twenty years ago, after all), but it doesn’t shy away from saying the hard things. It takes into account how guns were necessary to rise up against the British, while also acknowledging how firearms were a big factor in the genocide of Native Americans. It shows how gun sellers, professors, students, suburban housewives, and more all approach the issue, and is incredibly nuanced.

While it is, as I said, nuanced, Higgins makes it very clear from his closing and opening scenes that this piece is in support of strict gun control. These scenes are the only ones completely devoid of satire, where the ensemble addresses the audience frankly with historical facts and very human statements on violence. I found them necessary to keep the message firmly in the audience’s mind as the play begins and as they leave the theatre. While I find the satire used in the vignettes effective and sobering, I feel that some people could take them in a realistic way if not for these bookends.

In particular, I found a few scenes more memorable and therefore, perhaps, more effective, than others. Specifically, “Traditional Values”, “Code Red”, and “Moonglow”.

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“Traditional Values” is very outwardly satirical. It depicts a high school course called “Traditional Values 101”, where the teacher instructs an auditorium full of students on the “correct” way to duel— that’s right, old school killed-Alexander-Hamilton dueling. Two students who are “beefing” are brought up to the stage, where they are shown how to participate in an “honorable” duel. One students dies. Straight up dies on stage in front of what is said to be a full auditorium. This scene speaks pointedly to the desensitization of our society towards gun violence, specifically in schools and towards young people. A young character loses their life in this scene, and nobody bats an eye. It’s disturbing, and unfortunately a little too realistic.

“Code Red” is specific to schools once again, and differs from a lot of the scenes like “Traditional Values” in that is grounded in a lot more realism. Two teachers (one white and one Black) and their principal discuss the new dress code being implemented, particularly the new policies on hair. There are not only undercurrents of institutionalized racism here, but also just plain fear of the “different”. The dress code being discussed emphasizes making sure that no students feel “othered”, which is the excuse for wanted to get rid of any defining characteristics or styles among the students. In this scene it is stated that Columbine has just occurred, and the prevailing (and true, in a lot of ways) theory was that the shooters acted because they felt like outsiders, so they want to try and control that by controlling how students present themselves. The teachers bicker, both feeling attacked by the policies and each other, and nothing is resolved.

“Moonglow” is perhaps the most experimental vignette of the three I’ve listed, which depicts a reporter interviewing a little Black girl about the violence she has experienced in her apartment complex. It starts out fairly realistically with the girl mentioning how the school windows are boarded up for safety, and her apartment windows have blackout curtains for similar reasons— because there are so many shootings. It then moves into a play within a play, as the little girl performs a skit for the reporter. In it, carousel horses come to life and tell the girl that they are going to the moon because they are sad, and they’ll take her and other sad people with them— one for each horse. When the girl and the other sad people meet the horses on the roof, the girl begins to feel bad for her mother. In the end, she lets her mother take her place, and she remains on earth, alone. That would be sad enough, but then it ends with the girl admitting that she’s actually never even seen a carousel…or the moon.

These three scenes do a wonderful job of illuminating what I think are three very important messages this play is trying to get across: society’s desensitization to gun violence; how people can’t seem to stop and listen to one another about the issue, instead talking over one another so much that nothing gets done; and how gun violence effects very young children’s mental health, especially in marginalized communities. These messages are supported throughout, and Higgins doesn’t shy away from using statistics to support them (even though those stats are now over twenty years old). But even then, I don’t think the statistics are necessary to get the point across— the messages would resonate with anyone who has witnessed the epidemic of gun violence grow and change and expand into the monster that it is now in 2024.

This is an instance where the subject matter is so delicate, and yet treating it with kid gloves doesn’t do anything, doesn’t serve the greater purpose or illuminate anything for anyone. It’s an issue that has gotten to the point of needed a sledgehammer and screaming so loud you lose your voice. The time for delicacy passed a long, long time ago. It makes me wonder— if Higgins revisited this piece now, what would he change? What would he say now, if given the opportunity to add to or change the piece?

And that’s the problem with creating art about these ever changing, life or death issues: the play isn’t ever really done. You either have to be okay with that, continuing to update it and continue the conversation whenever it is produced, or be okay with the work becoming potentially outdated and even offensive.

I write social justice/political pieces like this every now and then, and this is something I will be keeping in mind for future productions and conversations regarding those pieces.

Here is my official recommendation of the play on NPX:

Even though this play was written over twenty years ago, it is still so incredibly relevant. I liked how each vignette took a different approach and perspective on the issue, and that we saw so many different characters. Still worth a read, in my opinion.

Have you read this play? Do you want to? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

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NPX Weekly Round-Up: Gunplay, A Play About America by Frank Higgins

How do we use our art to confront tragedy?

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