The production we saw of Shadow of a Gunman took a few interesting liberties with the production, changing the interpretation of the piece. When we read the piece in the hostel, it seemed like the idea of Minnie and Davoren was a sweeter pairing, but in this production, Minnie comes across as younger, even more naive. Davoren comes across as a pedophile. Given, the play states their ages as 23 and 30’s respectively, they should seem fairly fit for each other, but this play took on the creep factor and ran with it, over-sexualizing Minnie in the process. Overall, Davoren is even harder to like in this production, though he comes across as an elitist in the text, the production adds to this with the idea that he is a ravenous degenerate.

Anachronisms also entered into the play, despite being set in the 1920s, the attire and props of the players reflects a more contemporary setting. Minnie wears a go-go dress, Seumas peddles bath toys and pinwheels in modern packaging and owns some electrical toys, Mrs. Henderson wears a windbreaker, and Tommy appears to carry a phone in one of his pockets, along with a notepad– looking like a high school jock. These were all fine, as they added to the richness of the play, and brought it a bit into the modern era. But the dates presented in the dialogue of the play are a bit jarring given Seumas’ wares.

Lastly, this piece uses a bit of background music and ambiance music. The intense dramatic portions of the play, such as the opening of Maguire’s bag accompanied by a tense drone. The intro and “act transitions” are passed with music. I wasn’t keen on the music and Mr. Davoren’s “set-up” at the very beginning of the play, but I was very impressed with the act transition, which passed with the lights up, showing the passage of time, and the other characters coming in and changing the set;  however, Davoren interacts with the set-changers (Minnie, who teases and flirts with Davoren and Tommy, who sits in the corner and stares). Since the set utilizes the giant windows so well, various characters walk down the alleyway, including the deceased Maguire, who peers into the window, continues walking, and flies past the second window, as if from an explosion. Seumas comes home and unpacks, getting ready for bed. This whole sequence with the music comes across as a somewhat ghostly daydream that Mr. Davoren experiences: thinking of Minnie, imagining Maguire’s death… and his only real interactions are represented by Seumas coming home. A toy monkey clashes cymbals together continuously, enforcing the notion that this is some sort of trance, and heightens the eerie factor. This trance is normalized and dissolves into reality as the lighting dims into night and the play resumes with Davoren lost in thought as he writes the first lines of Act II.