‘Ten Ways on a Gun’ takes aim at America’s firearms obsession.
Live gunfire, we were told, would ring out in Dylan Lamb’s ambitious “Ten Ways on a Gun.”
A trigger warning seemed appropriate for a theatrical meditation on America’s obsession with guns. There was no warning, however, that after two or so hours of a lively, funny, wellperformed, manic, surreal extravaganza, I wouldn’t be sure what, if anything, “Ten Ways on Gun” actually has to say about gun violence.
“Ten Ways on a Gun,” directed by Jacey Little and presented by the Landing Theatre Company, is a tale of disappointment-fueled obsession. Worn-down white-collar New Yorker Tommy Freely buys a gun in a sketchy online transaction. He wants to feel confident, manly and whole in the eyes of his girlfriend, his colleagues and his boss.
But in a rather inventive twist, Tommy creates a time-share scheme for the gun. It turns out nearly everyone wants to feel the power and the confidence that comes with holding a firearm. It’s a veritable addiction.
The gun becomes a connecting point, drawing lives and plots unexpectedly together — four telemarketers in New York and their liaisons, their unscrupulous boss and a down-and-out couple in a trailer in Texas — until the expected culmination of a shooting.
Perhaps most impressive about “Ten Ways” was an ensemble performance that managed to be passionate, humorous and light on its feet.
Greg Cote is irresistible as Benji Kugel, a midlevelmanager type on the rise in the world of corporate rip-offs. In one sequence, the possession of the gun sends Cote into a dreamlike delirium. He sent the audience into stitches as he sang, danced and gesticulated to Rupert Holmes’ “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” while his castmates danced in Hawaiian shirts, grass
skirts and coconut bras in the background.
The stellar Jovan Jackson played with zeal the soulless Philly Brenneman, who believes it is his inner cannibal that allows him to swindle retirees into buying crappy condos at outrageous prices. Even Karl Marx might’ve been seduced by Jackson’s suave routine.
The veteran David Rainey excelled in numerous parts — a conceited mogul, a desperate thespian and a dodgy Craigslist roommate.
Kevin Holden’s flexible set — a series of walls that could be wheeled around and flipped to create different locations — made the ensemble’s work particularly seamless.
The story tries to understand the torments and disappointments that drive ordinary people to want to play with fire. But wait, that’s not enough for Lamb, who encloses that play within a play. Or, at least, a play that gives rise to another play.
“Ten Ways on a Gun” is also the story of an alltoo-easily spoofed theater company trying to create a performance about guns. The problem that arises is that the story of Tommy Freely and his gun scheme is far more compelling than the story about staging that story.
Jessica Person, ably performed by Amy Garner Buchanan, wants nothing more than to triumph with her company, the Soul Motion Architects, in a “dance docudrama” on gun violence inspired by President Barack Obama’s tweet about the Newtown, Conn., shooting. She hears of Tommy Freely after an embarrassing onenight stand and persuades a company member’s wealthy boyfriend to fund a hasty production. Inside jokes about the theater ensue.
A character named “Stage Directions,” energetically and effusively rendered by Mai Hong Le, reads the stage directions, comments on the action and even redirects the plot at crucial moments.
Buchanan even appears in the guise of a critic to demolish Jessica’s play, describing it as “like its subject matter, a national tragedy” and Person “a terrorist … of the sense.” This wasn’t as funny as it was ill conceived and in poor taste just weeks after the massacre at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Like many of these selfaware gestures, it was just too much. This layering distracted from what “Ten Ways on a Gun” had to say about firearms. Instead, it initiated a lot of handwringing about the power of the theater.
“I wanted to not feel crazy for making believe,” Person almost whimpers in a tedious monologue addressed to Obama. But this seems to be a misunderstanding of our moment. The problem isn’t that people think theater is crazy. The problem is that art feels, of late, powerless in the face of an epidemic of violence.
“Ten Ways on a Gun” boasts fine performances, clever writing, neat tricks and a lot of laughs. But now that I think of it, I can’t remember when that gun actually went off, or if it was just a lot of people yelling “bang.”
Joseph Campana teaches Renaissance literature and creative writing at Rice University.