The question posed in The Bullet Round is an
intermittently hot-button one, its cultural profile rising and falling
in relation to school shootings and whether or not the first lady needs
a cause du jour: What’s the root cause of violence in our society? Is
it racism, classism, filial resentment? More specifically, does
violence in the media promote real-life violence, or do media
depictions of violence—in movies and videogames, in song
lyrics—simply serve as a safety valve, an outlet for society’s
more violent impulses?
Theater is perhaps uniquely poised to consider this question, in
that it’s a medium that can depict violence without being accused of
perpetuating it. No one’s going to accuse The Pillowman of
contributing to child murders—theatergoing audiences are,
presumably, too sophisticated to allow themselves to be shaped by the
media they consume (unlike all those car-stealing, whore-killing
Grand Theft Auto IV gamers).
The Bullet Round raises its question in the contemporary
context of the rap music scene in Boston, circa now, and the script’s
consideration of violence is both theoretical and literal: The show
follows the path of a single gun as it passes from one character to the
next (Chekhov is name-checked, on the off chance that anyone
doesn’t expect the gun to fire by play’s end).
Joey (Chris Murray) is “the new Eminem,” a white rapper known for
his misogynistic and homophobic lyrics. With the help of his brother
Kevin (Paul Glazier), Joey’s preparing for two upcoming appearances: an
interview with radio shock-jock Arthur (Anthony Casanova), and an
appearance at a Harvard conference about violence in the media, in
which a well-known pop culture scholar will argue that violent song
lyrics allow audiences to experience a “catharsis effect,” a symbolic
purging of violent impulses through music.
As Joey, Murray does some of his best work to date—Murray has
a tendency toward hamminess, but underneath the mugging is a talented
actor with good instincts (the young actor was recently seen in Third
Rail’s A Skull in Connemara, and that company just announced his
addition as a full-time ensemble member). Nowhere is this more evident
than in a scene in which Joey is interviewed by Arthur, directed with
precision by Megan Kate Ward. Arthur is a well-dressed, upper-class
black man; Joey slouches into the studio in a sweatshirt, hood up, all
friendly bluster. What Joey thinks is going to be a fluffy interview
quickly turns into a hatchet job, as Arthur derides Joey for his
offensive lyrics, his appropriation of black culture, and his broad
South Boston accent. Joey’s cheerfulness soon begins to fray, and he
begs Arthur—on air—to “stick to the script,” only to lose
it altogether when Arthur suggests he might be gay. Volumes are
communicated in the hesitations and outbursts of this interaction, as a
subtle power struggle wages between the twin indignities of racism and
classism—not to mention Arthur’s deliberate, gleeful manipulation
of Joey’s own homophobia.
Playwright Steven Drukman is better at dialogue and characterization
than plot—the script is funny and the characters compelling, but
Drukman’s requirement that a gun pass between every character in the
play leads to some unlikely character decisions, and the show
ultimately feels overstructured and contrived. It also dodges its own
question, concluding, after 90 minutes of wading through theories of
violence and the politics of race and class, that the answer to the
question posed in the first paragraph of this article is “none of the
above.” The answer we’re left with is that violence is a response to
cruelty—the bullied becomes the bully. For a show as crammed with
ideas as The Bullet Round, it’s a disappointingly glib
conclusion.