Bang Bang You’re Dead

By William Mastrosimone. Sacred Heart College Year 11 production. Sacred Heart College, Somerton Park SA. June 1-2, 2016

Within three years of its premiere in 1999, William Mastrosimone’s thought-provoking and tragically real play, Bang Bang You’re Dead had already been performed more than fifteen thousand times by young people worldwide, so the number of performances must by now be off the scale. The latest staging of this highly impactful one act play has been by Adelaide’s Sacred Heart College, with the college presenting it as a year eleven production.

Created in response to a disturbing ‘threat to kill’ message a classmate of the playwright’s son wrote anonymously on a classroom chalkboard, the play shines light into the darkness with its focus on the ongoing needless tragedy of deadly violence perpetrated in schools. The shocking events of particular significance to the play occurred at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon in 1998. Significantly, the very first production of the play was presented in Thurston the following year and included cast members who had survived Kip Kinkel’s shooting of his parents and twenty seven of their classmates.

Playwright Mastrosimone decreed Bang Bang You’re Dead must be performed ‘by kids, for kids’ and that it be performed for no cost, in everyday clothing, with no set or special lighting.

Josh is the central character of the play. He is a high school student who murders his parents and five classmates after posting an anonymous threat on a classroom chalkboard.

Sacred Heart College’s production was simply staged, as per the playwright’s wishes, with only a video screen in the foreground and a performance space devoid of trappings except for a dark rectangular central bench. Props were few and included handheld torches that illuminated the faces of the victims’ ghosts.

Before the performance, the audience was confronted by a Powerpoint slide show that presented a seemingly endless list of school shootings in the USA. The number of victims was included for each. It was made more powerful for those present by the inclusion of one slide describing the impact and legacy of the Port Arthur massacre perpetrated in Australia by Martin Bryant. The slideshow was a moving and sobering introduction to the events to come in the play.

This was an excellent performance, with the cast performing in a fine ensemble. A clever directorial touch by Director Robyn Page was the use of three actors to each play Josh in a different aspect of his life; at school, at home and in prison after the event, the latter a place in which he is plagued by the ghosts of his victims.

Solemn recorded music accompanied the action. The colour palette of clothing was essentially black and white, with red the only other particular colour, in Josh’s flannel shirt and in blood on white t-shirts.

By request, only the first names of the cast are mentioned in this review. Laura, Shannon and Tianna were very strong as Josh, each dressed identically in flannel shirt and jeans. It was not at all confusing that there were three actors in the role, such was the smoothness of the character transitions by these three as the action moved back and forth between Josh’s home, his school and his prison cell.

The remaining cast included actors playing Josh’s parents and grandfather, school principal/officer, psychotherapist and the ghosts of Josh’s victims. This supporting cast were Flynn, Olivia, Karl, Max, Adam, Josie, Haydn, Lauchlan, Aisling, Maeve and Lincoln.

Importantly, Bang Bang You’re Dead is a fine reality check for young people as well as the rest of society. It reminds us that while glorification of violence and guns may be fodder for entertainment, murderous events such as those represented by this play are not moments in time that can be switched off like a video game. They are real and lasting; the victims gone for eternity and the lives of those left behind, including those of the perpretrators, never again the same.

Congratulations to the Director, cast and crew and all involved at Sacred Heart College for an excellent production that will surely have a lasting impact on those privileged to attend.

Lesley Reed