A sign adjacent to the box office at Silver Spring Stage proclaims “No Firearms or Weapons Allowed on Premises.” It’s a somewhat ironic introduction to the theater’s production of Stephanie Alison Walker’s 2019 play Friends with Guns, billed as a “provocative dark comedy” in which conflicts arise from neighbors’ clashing convictions on the vices or virtues of gun ownership.
While there are scattered comic moments in the production, the play is essentially a play of ideas within a domestic drama. The play begins with Shannon (Vanessa Markowitz), a frazzled mother of two young boys misbehaving in a park, delivering a monologue displaying her extreme level of anxiety. Leah (Ellen Schiavone), another mother of young children, encounters her. A peacemaker by nature, she comforts Shannon. They bond.
The two women and their husbands — Josh (Bri Caelleigh) and Danny (Smithchai Chutchainon), respectively — have much in common. They enjoy their neighborhood in Los Angeles, they share liberal political views (no Trump voters here), their kids get along well with each other. A dinner get-together goes swimmingly until Josh brings up his vigorous opposition to anyone or anything to do with guns. Danny and Leah, it turns out, have 11 guns in their garage. They are the most scrupulously responsible of gun owners. The guns are in a locked safe in a locked garage, stored separately from ammunition. Josh is horrified; their neighbors are “gun people”? It has not occurred to Shannon that nice people ever owned guns. The evening ends awkwardly.
Shannon remains drawn to Leah. They plan an outing, driving in a VW bus, delightfully realized in Sidriel Conerly’s set design by a representation of the front of the vehicle placed in front of a movable box that has several uses during the play. Shannon asks Leah why she wants to have guns. Leah responds with the highlight moment of the show, a long monologue, beautifully delivered by Schiavone, detailing a frightening experience in which two men tried to break into her apartment and the police did not come quickly. As Leah’s scene partner, Markowitz reacts with some of her best acting of the evening, as we see her beginning to understand and empathize with the roots of Leah’s thoughts and feelings.
The women visit Leah’s target shooting range, where Leah teaches Shannon how to shoot. For Shannon, the experience is exhilarating — “empowering,” to use a word from the script. She begins to find relief from her anxiety, subsequently enjoying a surfing turn in the ocean with Leah, despite her previous germaphobic aversion to the Southern California seas. Shannon’s character arc is the longest of any of the characters’, and Markowitz navigates the changes effectively.
Knowing Josh’s fixed opposition to guns, Shannon does not disclose her newfound interest in shooting to him. Josh and Danny have an extended debate on policy and constitutional issues. Josh cites studies showing that having guns in the home increases, rather than reduces, risks. Danny cites the Second Amendment (albeit without mention of that pesky “well-regulated militia” clause). Both are dug in ideologically, and their views remain as far apart as American society’s generally on the matter.
In the shortest role in the play, Danny, played as a pretty cool sort of guy, is primarily used as a foil to Josh’s arguments. But Chutchainon scores well on a key point, that as a person of color in America, Danny has reasons rooted in history to need to defend his family against whatever threats may come. Do we want only the right-wingers to have weapons?
For the women, guns offer a sense of protection too. They are tired of being afraid in terms of how they dress, where and when they walk, who may pose an unexpected danger to them. What we never learn from Walker’s script, however, is why Josh not only opposes guns in American society as a matter of policy, but why he is so deeply, at the emotional core of his being, incapable of dealing with anyone with different views. That mystery — no fault of Caelleigh — shrouds the motivation of the character.
In a press release, director Julia Rabson Harris said that there are “no bad guys” in the play. I’m not fully convinced. Seemingly depressed, drinking a bit much, hating his job, afraid of his wife distancing herself from him in favor of a new friend and set of interests, Josh becomes angrily controlling and even abusive toward Shannon. Contrasted with her growth and empowerment, Josh spirals downward toward bad-guy territory. I’d have liked the play to tell us more about where that comes from.
Conerly’s set realistically represents a suburban living room and patio, loomed over by a large gun range target upstage center. Don Slater’s lighting design distinguishes the different portions of the playing area well. Hamza Elnaggar’s sound design uses classic rock for pre-show and scene change music. I wished the amplification of the actors — notably Shannon’s initial monologue — had been less intense at times, and that the sound of the gunshots in the target range scene had been more realistically loud. Harris’s direction maintained a normal, everyday conversational pace throughout most of the show, appropriate to the situation and characters.
It’s not possible, of course, to view this show outside the context of an America beset with gun violence, whether daily acquaintance murders, political assassinations, school shootings, or Sunday morning’s attack on a Michigan church. In this context, I question the play’s theme of empowerment through firearms. The following lines from Sondheim’s Assassins came to mind:
And all you have to do is move your little finger
Move your little finger and
You can change the world
Why should you be blue
When you’ve your little finger?
Prove how just a little finger
Can change the world
How many people have there been, how many will there be — mostly not as suburban nice as the play’s characters — feeling powerless, scared, angry, desperately needing a moment of agency, ready to move their little fingers on one of the millions of triggers available to them?
Running Time: Two hours and 5minutes, including one intermission.
Friends with Guns plays through October 12, 2025 (Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00 pm and Sundays at 2:00 pm) at Silver Spring Stage, 10145 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD. Purchase tickets ($28; $25 for students and seniors) at the door, online, or by contacting the Box Office at boxoffice@ssstage.org or 301-593-6036.
Friends with Guns
By Stephanie Alison Walker
Directed by Julia Harris
CAST
Shannon: Vanessa Markowitz
Josh: Bri Caelleigh
Leah: Ellen Schiavone
Danny: Smithchai Chutchainon
