Anna Fierling, the spokesperson for the National Rifle Association who tells her story in “And Her Children,” is a fictional character clearly inspired by former NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch, but merged with the main character (not coincidentally named Anna Fierling too) of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children.” 

Those who know Brecht’s 1939 play understand it to be agitprop against the rise of Fascism in Germany, and an argument against complicity, since Anna is a war profiteer whose actions (and inactions) lead to tragedy. “And Her Children” is billed as a “reimagining” of “Mother Courage,” but what they have in common is mostly just a similar ending and a similar purpose. The new play is agitprop for gun control.

 I might have judged the production differently had I seen it when it debuted last year at the Hollywood Fringe, or even when it opened on January 17 at SoHo Playhouse as part of the International Fringe Encore Series, where it’s running through February 13. But instead I attended  “And Her Children” after masked government agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse, which brought the debate over gun control into a bizarre new spotlight.

“If you were looking for further evidence that we’re in the Upside Down, you have a white man with a concealed-carry permit, who is supposed to be the safest and the most powerful person in America, gunned down by ICE agents in the street,” said Nick Suplina, of Everytown for Gun Safety. “And the administration’s response – you don’t get to bring a gun to a protest – had these ardent gun lobby groups replying ‘no, he was following the law, he was not engaged in a crime, and he was still shot.’”

Suplina was the guest speaker after the performance I saw of the play, answering questions from the audience and from the co-writers of the play,  director Rosie Glen-Lambert and performer Hailey McAfee. Like Brecht, they want their play to function as a tool for social and political change. “I want people to re-access their anger,” Glen-Lambert said at one point during the post-show discussion. The urgency of “And The Children” feels more important than its craft.

This is not to imply that there is none. As Anna, McAfee gives an effective performance in what is essentially an 80-minute monologue, occasionally accompanied by Julia Hoffman wordlessly playing the violin. The character even almost wins our sympathy (something Brecht would never try to do) when she talks about her life as a cheeky child, a resilient pregnant teenager, an enterprising campus journalist and then an award-winning professional one, and especially when she talks about her three children —  when she talks, in other words, about almost anything other than her current occupation.

“When I accepted my position as a spokesperson for the NRA I was ecstatic Finally, a chance to make decent money, get myself out of the red. And I was mainly picturing myself at the galas, the annual meetings, as a panelist on FOX

“But then there was a shooting at a middle school in Colorado and I got called in to represent at my first Town Hall. It was a lot like this one, actually.”

This startled me. We are supposed to be watching her at a gathering much like the memorable one in which Dana Loesch participated following the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, part of which is on YouTube. But Anna spends so much time sharing personal stories and personal reflections that it is hard to keep in mind where she is supposed to be.

The play focuses on revealing her lack of empathy, and on what might be called her comeuppance, if that word didn’t feel too mild. I won’t spoil the ending, except to say that it tries too hard to mimic Brecht’s ending, without anywhere near as clear a connection between cause and effect.

At the post-show discussion, Glen-Lambert mentioned an article that Sara Ruhl wrote for the Guardian in December, after the shooting at Brown University ((My daughter was in the Brown University library, hiding under the desk)

The director brought this up mostly to echo Ruhl’s contention that there has not been enough theater about gun violence. I don’t know how much is enough, but I’ve seen plenty.

I find a more interesting insight in Ruhl’s article: “The Parkland students who became advocates were theater students. They knew how to use the power of language and image.”