Opening The Curtain On Torture
Filed Under Country Curtain | Posted on November 12, 2008
McDonagh’s first success, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, jolted audiences in Galway, London and New York, where it opened in 1998. The Lieutenant of Inishmore, on Broadway in 2006, had audiences gasping both at the comedy and at the apparently horrific fate of an innocent onstage cat.
Director Kevin G. Becker and a terrific cast have brought Broadway’s house of horrors up close and personal. In the intimate Mandell Studio Theater, there’s no looking away when the brutish cop Ariel (Lima) pounds a prisoner’s head into the floor, and there’s no closing your ears when Katurian (Geoghagen) recites one of his stories the story of a child who is crucified, say, or the story of a child who is killed by having razor blades stuffed down her throat.
But the performances are compelling, and McDonagh is a master at twists and turns: Just when you think you can take no more, he makes it irresistible. I wouldn’t like living inside McDonagh’s head, and some of what comes out of it is specious. But if The Pillowman is true to what Hubris is capable of, let’s have more.
Tags: ariel, audiences, broadway, comedy, cop, curtain, director kevin, ears, fate, galway, hubris, mandell, mcdonagh, pillowman, torture, twistsRelated posts
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