Frigid Festival Previews

Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun

Produced by Sleepless Lookout Players

Author: Bradley Rand Smith

Johnny Got His Gun is a solo show based on the classic 1939 novel by Dalton Trumbo.  It is the story of Joe Bonham, a young WWI soldier who, in his service, loses his limbs, sight, hearing and speech.  The audience witnesses his discovery of his condition, and his attempts to communicate with the outside world and retain his sanity in the face of potentially endless isolation.

The show becomes more relevant as medical technology advances in relation to the destructive potential of combat.  Even though soldiers now survive injuries that are more and more horrific, war is presented to us as a distant and abstract affair.  The protagonist in Johnny wants to confront people with his ravaged body, to show people that war has real, living consequences that cannot be swept under the rug.  This show just does that.

Revivals always carry with them the threat of obsolescence, but Johnny's immediacy was clear to me from the start.  The psychology of this soldier is timeless, and while experiencing the performance it is easy to forget the war he fought in occurred almost a century ago.  And, though the play is incredibly dark, it is nevertheless an incredibly inspiring and hopeful story, following one man's journey back from the grave to stand and fight to be heard. The text is very powerful and elicits introspection in its audience, both about war and human connection.

Ricardo Pérez-Gonzalez, performer