Lesbian playwright Sarah Gubbins spoke slowly and thoughtfully as she carefully chose her words during a phone interview regarding her world-premiere drama Cocked for Victory Gardens Theater. Since the play explores current issues of gun ownership and gun violence in the United States today, it's understandable why Gubbins' responses frequently sounded as if she was treading carefully around a minefield.
"I was moved to write the play because I really wanted to spark a conversation in audiences' minds and with each other about why they felt what they felt about guns," Gubbins said. "And I think when you have issues that are as polarizing as guns are in our country, you know, 'get rid of them' or 'don't take away my guns' which seems to be the knee-jerk responses, that those positions go unexamined. And so I did want to write a play that allowed an audience to spend time thinking about why they felt what they thought."
Currently based in Los Angeles, Gubbins chose to set Cocked in her hometown of Chicago by having all the action take place inside a condo in the Andersonville neighborhood. The drama focuses on an interracial lesbian couple of an attorney named Taylor ( Kelli Simpkins ) and her crime reporter girlfriend, Izzie ( Patrice D. McClain ). The couple's relationship is severely tested when Taylor's troubled brother, Frank ( Mike Tepeli ), drops in unexpectedly and upends many of their traditional liberal views.
Cocked was previously seen in Chicago as part of a staged reading for Victory Gardens Theater's IGNITION Festival of New Plays in 2014. Gubbins said it is the first play in a planned trilogy examining guns and gun ownership in America.
"When I started, I discovered that one play wouldn't be enough," Gubbins said. "That question of to own a gun or to not own a gun is really the beginning of the trilogy."
Victory Gardens Associate Artistic Producer Joanie Schultz previously directed the world premieres of Gubbins' earlier plays with lesbian or queer characters like The Kid Thing for About Face Theatre in 2011 and fml: how Carson McCullers Saved My Life for Steppenwolf for Young Audiences in 2012.
"I think there's something incredibly progressive about having a play that features a lesbian couple, but isn't about lesbian themes," said Schultz about Cocked. "We're not talking about the themes of the lesbian community necessarily—they're the themes of all of our communities in Chicago right now. And of course Sarah is writing from a place that is familiar for her."
McClain agreed that many of the issues explored in Cocked are fairly universal, particularly the relationships dynamics.
"The couples' issues that Izzie and Taylor are having really revolve around being able to respect your partner's boundaries," McClain said. "And also those surprising things that come up in a relationship that really puts you on opposing sides of the same argument."
McClain says that Izzie is constantly reporting on the frontlines of gun and gang violence in Chicago. So naturally Izzie's views and personal background are bound to occasionally clash with those of Taylor, whose work mostly keeps her in a law office.
"The way Sarah deals with race in this play is very delicate, but I think it mirrors the way that race has become an issue in a 'post-Obama' era that we're in where everything is not black and white," McClain said. "It really takes a look at the different levels of privilege that we are afforded depending upon who we are and where we come from."
Cocked will mark the third time that actress Kelli Simpkins has appeared in one of Gubbins' plays, and McClain says that her co-star anchors the production.
"[Simpkins] really keeps us in the world of the play and keeps the pulse very honest," McClain said. Since Gubbins, Schultz and Simpkins have all previously worked together, McClain says it's a great working environment since there is such a close collaborative shorthand.
Both McClain and Gubbins feel it's important to be debuting Cocked at this time of increased debate over gun violence in light of so many mass-shootings in America. But there's also a strong sense of hometown pride, too.
"I really, really wanted this play to be produced in Chicago and for the Chicago theater community and Chicago theater audiences because it's about them and it's for them," Gubbins said. "I've had readings in Minneapolis and New York and L.A. and the play works fine, but there's something about having an audience that understands just precisely who these people are and where they live and precisely what they're up against. It just brings me such joy."
The world premiere of Sarah Gubbins' Cocked plays from Friday, Feb. 12, through Sunday, March 13, at Victory Gardens Theater, 2433 N. Lincoln Ave. Preview tickets are $15-$40, while regular run tickets are $15-$60; call 773-871-3000 or visit www.victorygardens.org .
