The Colorado Mesa University Theatre Department performed Bang Bang You’re Dead! in the Mesa Experimental Theatre inside the Moss Performing Arts Center. Naturally, with a busy schedule, I couldn’t see the show until Saturday.
As I walked up to the ticket booth, I was informed that the show was sold out. I was thrilled. A show being sold out definitely means it is worth seeing.
I walked into the theatre and was lucky enough to find a place to sit in the corner on the top – which gave me a great angle to take pictures.
Walking in, the only thing I knew about this show was that it was about school shootings and mental health.
Before the play started, Jordan Gray gave a powerful and moving speech on why this play is important, what it means to her and what it should mean to us.
The play starts off with a guy in an orange jumpsuit sleeping on a bed in the dark with five people surrounding him. One by one, each person then lit up their face with a flashlight and asked, “why me Josh?”
After they are done, the lights flash back on and they all pretend to be playing a game when they were kids. Josh remembers a conversation with his parents about getting a rifle so he can go hunting with his grandfather. Afterwards, he gets a life sentence in prison without the possibility of parole.
He then remembers the hunting trip with his grandfather and how he killed a buck. He then has mixed feelings of killing it. When he gets back to school his girlfriend breaks up with him and starts dating his best friend.
Josh, angry about these events, writes a threatening message on the board. His locker is searched, and everyone is talking about who might have done it. He tells his ex that it was him and she doesn’t believe him.
He gets called into the principal’s office and is told they compared the handwriting on the board to an essay he wrote in English and he is then expelled. He is told he will need to repeat the grade as well as go to summer school.
At home, his parents take away his rifle and send him to therapy. The therapist recommends he be hospitalized for a few days, so he can be observed as well as being medicated.
Josh goes home and the voices in his head tell him to kill himself. Before he can, his dad walks in the room and Josh shoots his dad. His mom, hearing the gun-shot, runs into the room and Josh kills her as well.
At school, kids are gathered around a table rambling about different subjects before Josh appears. After Josh is there, the scenery changes and they once again ask Josh why he killed them.
They go back and forth about all the things they will miss about being alive such as simple taste of french fries. They explain all the things they will never experience in life – such as graduating college, getting married or even turning 19.
They explain that Josh not only robbed them of that, but he also hurt their families because they will not be around anymore. Josh explains to the ghosts that he will also never have a chance to accomplish the things he wants out of life because he is now in prison.
The play ends with Josh crying on his bed, finally remorseful, asking himself what he has done.
First thoughts: the props and setting could have been better. The stage was in the center of the room and as they shifted to different sides of the stage, people on one side didn’t have the best view. There were a few times I couldn’t see what was going on exactly because they were underneath me – or the balcony in general.
As for the actual play itself, I can’t really explain my reasons behind it without being very vulnerable. Sorry, I’m not ready to do that yet. All I can say on it is that the play itself is definitely worth seeing.
Full disclaimer, there is a ton of anger in it. I was impressed with the amount of anger the actors were able to bring into their character.
The part where they were talking about all the things they were going to miss out on life and the things they were going to miss about being alive, it brought a flood of emotions for me. I sat there with tears in my eyes inside the theatre, again for reasons I’m not willing to talk about here.
I highly recommend seeing this play. It truly is about mental health. Although there was a lot anger, I found the most important part, again for reasons I’m not willing to talk about here, was where he was in therapy. He saw only anger and he only focused on the things that were going wrong in his life. The therapist told him he had multiple things going great.
I don’t want to give away the whole show here because I honestly want people to see it someday. So, I will leave you with something Gray said before the show: if you are struggling with something in your life, please seek help. Whether that be friends, family or therapy itself, please get help.
