Are we sitting comfortably..?
|
In the great tradition of oral stories, Martin McDonagh breathlessly pulls his audience into a grown-up Grimm tale of murder. Within these stories runs a narrative of neglect and abuse. Of course it's dramatic, but I don't believe that the work is mawkish, gratuitous or didactic.
I saw the original theatre production starring Jim Broadbent and David Tennant, which was electrifying. The visual devices brought the play leaping from page to stage, but you can still appreciate the playscript as a stand-alone text, illuminating as it does McDonagh's skill at manipulating spare, scorching dialogue.
|
|
Macabre horror
|
|
For innovation, this play gets top marks. But for entertainment, I give it one out of ten. One cannot but wonder where Martin McDonagh's gradual slide into increasing violence in his plays comes from. With The Pillowman, the violence is about as horrific as you can get. Compare this with his first play, The Beauty Queen of Linane where a daughter tortures her mother during a ten-minute period of the play. In the Pillowman, the violence is all consuming throughout and I longed for some let-up, some light relief, somewhere. For those who like complete utter cruelty, read this play. Despite my criticism, I remain in utter awe of Martin McDonagh's creative talent. Still, I would like more of a balance between the depraved side of human nature with what we all know exists as well, the noble and generous kind.
|
|
|
Impossibly Funny
|
|
This play deserves a resounding cheer for managing to approach a potentially controversial and difficult subject (the massacring of tiny infants) with startling ease and intelligence. The dialogue is second to none, and the play offers excellent two and three-handers for theatre students to use for rehearsal and showcase purposes. I was lucky enough to watch the play at it's recent run at the National Theatre, and the production lived up to the writing in winning style. I was lucky enough to get my copy signed by the entire cast, and I can't stop re-reading this truly brilliant play!
|
|
|
Excellent but scary
|
|
A storyteller is pulled in by police for investigation into a number of child murders. The author's stories feature brutal, harrowing and explicy child murders, all told in a eerie fairytale manner, and the murderer has been copying these scenarios. So. inevitably the police suspect the author is the murder and set to break him into confessing. This is a great play, and written with such energy that it really needs to be seen in performance. But if living in a theatrical vacuum like me , the second best option to to buy the text and 'play' the scenes out in your head. The shocking conclusion is just as brutal and harrowing as some of the authors stories, and leaves you cast adrft in your thoughts. Cracking play.
|
|
|
United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada