For a very long time the debate has raged. Does suffering make for better art? Is powerful art possible only when the artist has been damaged and tortured? Does misery equal poignancy or does that aspect emerge as a defense against unimaginable abuse? If you’re haunted by viciousness, why not use it to stoke the steam engine? Work your way past it? So goes the cunning premise of Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman.
I think it bears mentioning that McDonagh also asks if decency makes any difference. Or is it quaint delusion? McDonagh’s worldview is a ferocious, poisonous one, and he savors disabusing us of candy-ass notions. If we could prove that intense pain creates essential artistic voices, what then?
The Pillowman opens with Katurian (the author) waiting, after he’s been hauled off to jail. He doesn’t know why. Ariel (sadistic goon) and Tupolski (detective and Ariel’s superior) arrive. Ariel proceeds to give him a beatdown while Tupolski (a toxic snotrag) disparages Katurian for supposed sleights and disrespect. Katurian does not follow the news. He’s aghast to hear there’s been a succession of child murders, that just happen to recreate his ghoulish stories. Ariel and Tupolski keep suggesting that no one with a healthy mind and/or soul could devise such disturbing, vile content. Tupolski reads the stories aloud, while other cast members act them out. Insipid nursery school music is inserted to enhance The Pillowman’s contempt for sweetness and innocence.
Katurian Katurian cares more about preserving his oeuvre of short stories than anything else. They’re his legacy. Proof he’s left the world better. He believes art can change humanity. To remind we gathering of lost souls, there are still legitimate reasons to soldier on. Katurian hangs on to this, though he’s been subjected to years of horrific treatment. So impressive though his writing may be, it’s more nihilistic, more sardonic than sunshiny.
The Pillowman is McDonagh’s brilliant, reprehensible, astonishing, pathological satire of civilization, hypocrisy, and metaphysical cannibalism. Optimism isn’t just laughable, it’s stupid. Kindness is a ruse. We are surrounded by soulless humans, just waiting to fuck with us. It’s not easy to match tones, but it reminded me of Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird or Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find, or Brecht and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera.
The problem with McDonagh (and his taste for messing with our heads) is his carefully articulated assertions about Draconian punishment and man’s capacity for utter ruthlessness. For all his nasty revelry at our expense, he makes valid points : Charity and grace are grand, but they don’t get the job done. Welcome to the jungle. He’s not right and he’s not wrong. A nefarious Zen Koan.
I have been a proponent of Outcry Theatre for some time, overcome by their fearlessness, intelligence, vision, professionalism and gift for the fanciful. Not once have I been disappointed. I cannot begin to imagine the nightmares endured by Rebecca Johnson-Spinos when directing The Pillowman. Finding the right balance to carry this angry, sad, wry piece must have taken awhile. To orchestrate the story and keeping everyone on pitch.
Connor McMurray was alarming and triggering as Ariel, the bully cop who can’t resist knocking Katurian around. Will Frederick is touching and amusing as Katurian’s older, gentle brother, Mikal. Bryce Lederer is compassionate, smart, authentic and deeply, deeply moving as the author Katurian Katurian. For all his grisly obsession, he’s kept hold of his humanity, his kindness. Gifts the world doesn’t have much use for. Lederer manages a difficult, demanding role with finesse.
If edgy, inspired theatre sets your heart pounding. If it calls to you in your sleep. If you leave the theater a different person than when you arrived. If it dazzles and leaves you breathless. If nothing exhilarates you like phantasmagorical sleight of hand. Don’t miss Outcry Theatre’s The Pillowman.
Outcry Theatre presents The Pillowman, playing February 16th-25th, 2024. The Stone Cottage at Addison Theatre Centre, 15650 Addison Road, Addison, Texas 75001. 972-836-7206. www.outcrytheatre.com