The Pillowman

Overview

The Pillowman by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh (also the screenwriter of Seven Psychopaths and In Bruges) is a well-made play. Such plays can often be squeaky clean, with every theatrical nook and cranny exposed, each laugh well-placed and plot points expertly positioned, making for a tidy night in the theatre. But well-structured as The Pillowman is, its ambiguity and horror save it from being one of those plays.

In a nondescript totalitarian regime, short story writer Katurian (Oliver Wenn) has found himself a marked man, labelled a dissident writer despite his claim that his writing is apolitical and any 'messages' are purely incidental. His accusers admit that they like executing writers, because it 'sends a message'.

His macabre short stories such as The Little Jesus and The Little Apple Men seem uncannily similar to two child murders that have occurred in the town. Katurian's inspiration for his well-written horror tales is a childhood spent listening to his brother, Michal, being tortured in the room next door by his parents. His cathartic stories are all well and good until Michal feels inspired to re-enact them. It turns out these stories are not as innocent as Katurian thought.

The play is a defence of artistic expression, but an absurd one. The initial evidence that his art is directly responsible for two murders seems to support the argument that violence in art is incitement. But the ensuing violence and farce turn that argument on its head as Katurian chooses his stories over his own life. Even bad cop Ariel (Jeremy Waters) decides the tales are worth saving.

The play has a lot of meat to it and requires equal measures of heightened comedic and tragic energy from the cast. Waters offers an appropriately high level of energy that is not matched by other members of the cast. Wenn is at his best when reciting stories to the audience, but during the guts of the drama we're never sure how high the stakes are. He slips into noble resignation of his fate a bit too easily and the tragedy of his story doesn't find its full expression in his performance.

Peter McAllum playing good cop Tupolski strikes an appropriate laconic chord but doesn't deviate from this even in the climactic moments. Overall the piece lacks rhythmic variation and the pace lags in the second half. The cast is so close to the level of raging, hysterical farce that the piece calls for. Maybe they just need a loud, hooting audience to encourage them. Get to it .