What's going on here? We're in a rathskeller of a fairly classy kind, with expensive wines, a wise maitre d' who knows how to wheedle his customers into ordering them, a waiter with hip boots up to his chin, and a clientele that includes beautiful belles, both with and without mercy. And especially one other: the young man who speaks calmly, in riddles, and who carries a violin case in which rests a baby-blue machine gun. And all the while the waters are rising elsewhere, the earth about to be flooded a second time. There is discotheque music, a fancy fashion show, film strips of past horrors, including Lon Chaney, Bela Ludgosi, Boris Karloff, and Dachau. And finally explosions of violence as the waters continue to rise.
A Gun Play premiered at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City in October 1971 under the direction of Gene Frankel.