Bang is the story of Joan Vollmer, one of the pivotal women in the group that defined the Beat Generation who, despite being one of the keenest intellects in the seminal group of writers and poets, died tragically young after a bitter life.
It’s a tale of drug addiction, mental illness, incarceration and tragedy opening at the moment she was shot in the head by her common-law husband William Burroughs during a drunken game of “William Tell”. From there, the wrath of Vollmer leads the audience through her life, occasionally stopping to reflect on her slowly dying body and Burroughs's feeble attempts to resuscitate her.
It’s mostly a solo performance, with Vollmer portrayed by Linda Gaumnitz, spinning out the woman’s story with a raised eyebrow and an air of frustration with her life in general, leading the audience through her travels from husband to common-law husband via stays in mental institutions, stepping around the stage with a degree of paucity that perhaps is overplayed a little, with very occasional interjections through dialogue or on the bongo drums from Spencer Watson.
The inclusion of Watson on the bongos is perhaps understandable in terms of the percussive implications and he performs commendably, but it’s an unnecessary and at times distracting touch during the play. More distracting was at times, Gaumnitz would say her lines with dramatic and awkward pauses mid-sentence, as if she was divining the words from the air itself. Perhaps this as well was supposed to mimic some aspect of a jazz beat, but it occasionally came across more like she was simply reciting a memorised spiel rather than acting.
It’s still an intriguing look into the life of a person often ignored or seen as a minor footnote in the stories of the better-known men around her. Enjoyable certainly, but never quite managing to land with the blow that the title and concept implies.