The Festival’s schedule list this as a 30 minute play. That should have been correct given the published work is 26 pages, but somehow between publication and production 15 minutes were lost and the play lasted only 15 min. The good thing is that Andy Trensch’s Kierkegaard’s Gun is well written and Elliot McVeigh’s direction and the acting of Jim Cleary and Roberto Ragone made this a very well spent 15 minutes.

The play never goes beyond trope as the audience knows the outcome as soon as both actors come on stage with a set consisting of a table, two chairs, a book and a revolver. Jim Cleary’s “Mob Boss” has “requested” that Roberto Ragone’s “Mob Lieutenant” (Mob Boss’ childhood friend and second in command) meet with him. Mob Boss wants to discuss Lieutenant’s affair with Mob Boss’ wife and what he should do about it citing Kierkegaard’s discussion of objective versus subjective reality and noting that one is the other. The result is inevitable.