Play production workers: Ryan Koss, Matthew Hamm, Brykell Killingsworth and Cole Wagner, all students of Pepperdine University
Cole Wagner (writer), Lauren Lorati (Number 1/ Pearl, banjo), Matthew Hamm (Number 2/ David, guitar), Penny Devlin (Number 3/ Frankie), Brykell Killingsworth (Number 4/ Johnny, double bass), Kayla Bryant (Number 5/ Polly), Sam Brock (Number 6/ Knox), Ryan Koss (Number 7/ Tom, drums), Juliet Johnson (Number 8/ Ellen), Spencer Williams (Number 9/ Lee), Haley Powell (Number 10/ Delia), Zoë Prior (Number 11/ Rosie)
“I’m number 11. I don’t have a story yet.”
More than a piece of gig theatre about gun violence in America, Americana: A Murder Ballad, created by Scottish playwright Morna Young in collaboration with Pepperdine Scotland, aims to explore the narrative behind mass shootings, especially when it comes to the perpetrators.
“Folk stories always start with the breath.”
A ‘murder ballad’ is a subsect of the narrative song genre that centers the story on its subject: murder. These melancholic tunes are often seen in traditional and folk, Celtic-inspired and country music.
“Thoughts and prayers to the land of guns and glory”
This actor-muso show opens with a description of a movie theatre shooting, the delivery deliberately theatrical, sickly seeking to entertain. If tragedy + time = comedy, then a musical about American gun violence should feel quite profane, but the arresting piece does not trivialise the horrors now built into the everyday lives of American children.
After all, Americana has always glorified firearms and violence in general. Westerns have romanticised the vision of the handsome cowboy with the big belt buckle, the “good guy with a gun”.
Nuances peppered throughout the performance bring tinges of solemnity. When idle, the students often stand stony, palms down and out, not as jazz hands but as subtle yet strong imagery that serves as a reminder that they could be targets; they over-animate when called to speak, but noticeably subdue when they return to their silence, a show of being forced to act as the mouthpiece for the movement despite being the youngest victims of the crisis. Come the chorus, their palms go up in the submissive “don’t shoot” position. The entire piece has myriad songs but one chorus, essentially making the entirety of Americana: A Murder Ballad one song bound together by its call and repeat,
“Oh Americana, the land of the free…”
…a facetious cry in a reoccurring and increasingly minor-keyed refrain, a note on the cycle of torment Americans, children and otherwise, must sacrifice themselves to for the protection of the gun, a “cycle of doom - no answers only brutal feelings.”
Tight transitions and strong voices (notably Haley Powell) shine through this production, but in the cacophony of sub-themes exploring all American violence (though equally important to the discussion) the forest gets a bit lost for the trees with this ambitious, if a bit tangled, approach to the plot. Tirades into sexual harassment, LGBTQ+ rights, toxic masculinity (nearly all mass shooters are men), to name a few of them, are vital to the conversation and are deeply intertwined with the gun violence crisis; however, tackling all gets a bit chewy.
The ending does crescendo tidily, with the blazer-clad narrator performing the same starting monologue, but this time desperate and increasingly hysterical; a final cycle as the violence has come for him in the end, too.
With this gutting and emboldening show, the audience is urged to “break the ballad” and to reject the hopelessness and narratives thrust upon us in this climate of fear in favour of asking how we got here and how we** can get out.
As one of the actors, Juliet Johnson, decrees in this penetrating essay, “The land of the free does not mean 'freedom: terms and conditions apply'.”
Flameless candles dot the perimeter of downstage which serve to set the scene as a vigil to the countless lost, perhaps for those to whom this piece is dedicated*.
Americana: A Murder Ballad tickets: here
Aug 9-17 | 13:20
Suitability: 14+ (Guideline)
*Playwright Morna Young dedicates this production to Alaina Housley and the Pepperdine class of 2020. On 7 November 2018, twelve people were murdered in the Borderline Shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, one the victims being 18-year old Alaina, a close friend to several of the actors performing this show. Instead of cancelling the commission when the horror of this imaginary ballad became real for its creators, the company have ensured they continue to challenge this violence and remain fuelled to make this work.
**This reviewer is an American living in Scotland.