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| Eugene Troobnick, Tony Musante, Arny Freeman. |
A Gun Play arrived
Off Broadway after an initial showing by the Hartford Stage Company. It was
received as an overly symbolic work about “the canker in our society”
represented by an assortment of eccentric character types assembled in an once
fashionable restaurant whose basement is mysteriously flooding with water. The
floorshow presented to the customers is a presentation of film clips featuring
old horror movies and historical atrocities, such as the Nazi death camps.
Finally, a movie-type gangster mows everyone down with a machine gun as
retribution for their sins.
Written in a semi-absurdist vein, it had offbeat scenes of
humor, as when a killer used a credit card to pay a girl delivering ammunition
to him. Clive Barnes had reservations about the play’s originality, but
recommended it, while Walter Kerr denigrated its “lightweight and deadening”
characters and dialogue, as well as its “false . . . , gratuitous [and] clumsy”
symbolism. Edith Oliver rejected it as “a foolish venture.”
The amusing performance of Eugene Troobnick as an incompetent waiter was well liked, and Barnes called Gene Frankel’s direction “exemplary.” The sizable cast included M’el Dowd, Tony Musante, and Arny Freeman, among others.
The amusing performance of Eugene Troobnick as an incompetent waiter was well liked, and Barnes called Gene Frankel’s direction “exemplary.” The sizable cast included M’el Dowd, Tony Musante, and Arny Freeman, among others.