David Greig took the 2011 Norway massacre, where some kid walked into a summer camp and shattered everything, and decided to make a play that doesn’t give you easy answers or comfortable catharsis. Because there aren’t any. And Shotgun Players at Berkeley’s Ashby Stage produced it.
I photographed this thing for set designer Angrette McCloskey. Which means I was there, in the room, trying to capture something that resists capture, how do you photograph the aftermath of incomprehensible violence? How do you frame hope without making it look cheap? You don’t.
What It’s Really About
Angrette’s set design understood that sometimes less is more, you don’t need elaborate staging when you’re dealing with the weight of actual human trauma. The space held the story without overwhelming it. So if you wanted a night out where you could forget about the world’s darkness, this wasn’t it. If you wanted theater that treats you like an adult who can handle difficult truths without narrative safety nets, that acknowledges we’re all wading through this mess together trying to find meaning in the meaningless, then yeah, this was something worth showing up for.