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Guns On Stage: Flirting with Danger
in Pursuit of Art
By Jack Marshall, Artistic Director
of the American Century Theater
Reprinted with permission
On-stage gunfire is crucial to the action of
Cops. That places any theater company producing the play in a perilous
position, but one that is nearly unavoidable in the dramatic arts.
Early in the morning of March 31, 1993, in
Wilmington, North Carolina, actor Brandon Lee (the son of martial arts
legend Bruce Lee) was filming his final scene, in more ways than one. It was
the death of Lee's character at the hands of street thugs, and was a pivotal
plot element to the movie. Lee was to walk through a door carrying a bag of
groceries. Actor Michael Massee fired a revolver loaded with blanks at Lee
as a small explosive charge went off in the grocery bag. A fragment of a
dummy bullet, used earlier in close-up shots, was lodged in the gun’s
barrel. The blank charge propelled the fragment into Lee's side, killing
him.
This is the nightmare scenario that has every
theatrical producer, director, props designer and actor on edge whenever a
play calls for on-stage gunfire. Dummy bullets are never used in the
theater, but there are other ways for unloaded guns to kill. In 1984, rising
TV hunk Jon-Erik Hexum put a blank-loaded revolver to his head, apparently
as a joke, and pulled the trigger. The explosion was violent enough to
dislodge a piece of his skull about the size of a dime and propel it through
his brain, ending his life. Guns symbolize violence and they create
violence: this makes them dangerous and, in the world of storytelling,
essential.
It is not only guns, of course. Actors have been
stabbed by on-stage knives and daggers (Orson Welles’ famous Broadway
production of Julius Caesar once resulted in Caesar ending an act
lying in a pool of his own blood, because Welles himself had gotten careless
and nicked him), had bones broken by sticks and clubs, and lost teeth with
misplaced stage punches. Acting is a dangerous business, and the more
realistic stage action has to appear, the more dangerous it is.
Many theaters have reacted to this centuries-old
truism by becoming cautious to the point of making convincing drama
impossible. The same risk-averse instinct that has most stage fights in D.C.
and elsewhere resembling dance breaks too often results in tinny
starter-pistols being used in place of accurate-looking fire-arms, or
off-stage taped or manufactured explosions substituting for gunfire
originating from an on-stage gun. There are also companies that simply avoid
plays that call for on-stage gunfire, removing a significant and vital
section of the theatrical repertoire.
Back in the Golden Age of live theater, canny
playwrights tended to avoid the problem by relying on the “off-stage
gunshot,” usually signifying a suicide, as in Lillian Hellman’s The
Children’s Hour, Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler and Arthur Miller’s All
My Sons. This also allowed the use of a Plan B or even C if, as is
always a possibility when guns are involved, the weapon failed to fire. The
usual hierarchy of off-stage gunshots goes like this:
• Plan A: Revolver fired by Stage Manager
or Props Staff
• Plan B: (If Plan A fails): Back-up
revolver fired by Stage Manager or Props Staff
• Plan C: (If Plans A and B fail) :
Recorded gunshot over sound-system
• Plan D: (Usually improvised in case A,
B, and C fail): Somebody slams a book to the floor or yells, “Bang!”
It is surprising how often Plan D comes into
play!
Of course, on-stage misfires do not allow for
such solutions, which is another reason on-stage gunfire is so rarely called
for. The device has also fallen victim to increased sensitivity by audience
members (local laws often require theaters to post warnings when a play
includes gunfire), overly broad local gun regulations (many of the guns
audiences see on stage, especially in theaters near or in schools, are
technically illegal, though authorities seldom enforce this), and political
correctness.
A particularly silly outbreak of the latter came
in the wake of the recent Virginia Tech shootings, as several colleges,
including Yale, briefly banned the use of any stage prop weapon, including
fake guns, knives and swords, that looked real, as if stage props had
anything at all to do with one mad student’s rampage.
Omitting the brightly-colored toy guns that a
temporarily bonkers Yale administrator forced Yale students to use during
this period, there are four types of guns used in stage productions:
• Non-Firing Replicas ---Obviously the
safest gun for use on stage, this looks and feels like a real gun, but will
not fire, lacking as it does several key components. Relatively inexpensive,
these guns are manufactured from original blueprints, and sometimes are made
of realistic molded rubber, as were the WWII M-16s used in TACT’s Home of
the Brave. They can be used when a gun needs to be displayed on stage
but not fired. Non-firing replicas are still treated as real guns and locked
up when not in use.
• Starter’s Pistols--- Small, cheap, and
often sold with a red plastic tip (that must be painted over or removed for
use on stage---a violation of the law), these make a sound that is loud and
sharp but only marginally more realistic than a cap pistol. Fine for comedy
(TACT’s Hellzapoppin used them exclusively, like the original), they
are so instantly recognizable as props that they are inadequate for
realistic drama.
• Blank-Firing Replica (Blank Gun) – This
is a gun built specifically to chamber a blank round. A blank round is a
shell that does not contain a bullet. Generally, these are built from
blueprints matching real guns and then modified to chamber a blank round,
usually 8mm, and ported so that the gasses from firing do not come out of
the end of the barrel, but are shunted out the top or side. These come in
three basic types: the revolver and semi-automatic handgun styles, and the
long gun.
• Revolver– This handgun has a cylinder
that holds the blank rounds and rotates to bring them under the firing pin.
Best for use on stage because of its simplicity and the fact that it does
not eject spent shells.
• Semi-Automatic– This handgun holds its
blank rounds in a magazine in the grip and, when fired, uses a slide powered
by expanding gases to chamber the next round. This has the effect of
ejecting the spent shell from the gun onto the stage or even into the
audience. And the shells ejected are hot.
• Long Gun A blank-firing replica of a
rifle, these are not often called for in plays.
Real guns should never to be used on stage.
Blank-firing replicas fire rounds containing only a primer and powder. A
blank round looks very much like a spent shell from a real gun that may or
may not be crimped at the end. Sometimes it has a piece of paper or
cardstock inside that holds the powder in place. This ammunition comes in
several different sizes: .22 caliber acorn, .22 caliber long, .32 caliber,
.380 caliber, 8mm and 9mm. Most blank-firing replicas made specifically for
use on stage use 8mm and 9mm, although the .32 and .380 are also popular
revolver loads.
The rules of safety for on-stage guns haven’t
changed in a hundred years, though the enforcement of them is more vigorous,
partially because fewer actors and technicians have experience with real
guns than was once the case.
The Ten Rules of Stage Firearm Safety:
1. Every gun must be handled, stored and treated
as if it is real and loaded.
2. Never point a gun directly at an actor or
audience member. Aim and fire upstage or well to the side of the target. The
audience will never know the difference.
3. Never fire a gun within 2 feet of another
person, because escaping gasses can injure them and the sound can cause
hearing loss.
4. Do not fire a gun while the gun is in contact
with a person, even through clothing.
5. Make sure that only one person, typically the
props manager or stage manager, has control of the guns until they go out on
stage, and that they are immediately returned to the same person following
their use.
6. The production’s gun handler must be trained
in gun safety and be familiar with guns, their maintenance and cleaning. The
gun handler should make sure each gun is inspected, cleaned and in good
working order each time it goes to the prop table.
7. The gun handler must be the only one
responsible for loading and unloading the stage guns, although all actors
must be familiar with how they work.
8. All guns are to be locked up when not
actually needed.
9. Firing guns should never be loaded until just
before use.
10. Each actor who uses a gun must be taught
basic gun safety, and be familiar with the rules of the theater regarding
the use and storage of stage guns. |
