“This is the first play that I’ve
written that I haven’t called fiction,” said Lewis. “It’s a true story
and it’s been tough to write. It’s
been a journey but it was time
for me to write and it was a time
for me to go to that place again.
It’s been 11 years now since the
death of my husband and I have
kind of set away his death and
his life and our life together for a
long time not being fully capable
of dealing with it. So, this has
been about opening that box
and it’s been challenging.”
The play involves a man telling
her story. Lewis sits in the audience and is acknowledged by
the character during the play.
The Gun Show is actually five
stories; events that are all true
and all happened to Lewis. It
starts out talking about how she
grew up in Oregon with guns.
“Guns were not considered
anything extraordinary,” she explained. “They were farm tools,
New Jersey Stage
just like a John Deere tractor or
a shovel. So, the story begins
with my experience of guns in
the beginning in a very normalized way in a rural setting. And
I think that’s what the play is
trying to navigate. The United
States is so large and diverse
and someone who is 200 miles
away from law enforcement in
Montana or Oregon or Alaska
might have a very different take
on guns than someone in the
middle of the city. Our country
is so polarized it feels like it’s
impossible to talk about it in any
civilized, rational way.”
Lewis believes that part of the
polarization stems from how
America gets its news. A story
about someone dying in a gun
incident will look very different
if seen on NPR than it would on
Fox News.
“The feeling of separateness
and the ‘I can’t hear you, I can’t
hear you’ as we’re yelling out
January 2015
pg 90