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The Lieutenant of Inishmore |
Author: Martin McDonagh
Published: 2003-08 |
List price: $7.50
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Customer comments on this selection.
 Black Comedy and Theater of the Absurd
In June of 2006 I saw the Broadway production of "The Lieutenant of Inishmore." The eight character play has more blood and gore overwhelming the stage than any play I have ever seen. After the intermission the stage was littered with dismembered body parts and blood splashed over everything.
In this black comedy the words black (more violent) and comedy (more farcical) take on new meanings. The dialogue in the play, funny and inane, is right out of the theater of the absurd or theater of the ridiculous.
The characters in this play are dimwits, off-the-wall nutcases. Donny, for example admits to trampling on his Mam. His son Padriac, the self-anointed lieutenant, a certifiable homicidal psychopath who cares more for his cat Wee Thomas than he does any human being, reminds his father "There's no statute of limitations on Mam trampling." The play is full of surprises, shocks to the system, ironic twists, and over the edge humor. The ending is a master stroke.
Padriac has to form a terrorist splinter group because he is too violent for the IRA. He is betrayed by his former terrorist brethren who act like the Three Stooges. One girl, Mairead, entertains herself by shooting out the eyes of cows.
In a black comedy piece in Scene Two Padriac is torturing a man he has trussed up and has hanging upside down by his feet. Listen to him and other characters as they are about to be tortured or killed and you hear stubbornness, and a stupid bent to infuriate and aggravate their executioner/torturer.
The two characters who open the play, Donny and Davey, are two clowns performing a vaudeville act. They are incredibly dumb, and their dialogue is full of non sequiturs.
McDonagh has said that making audiences uncomfortable, getting them wriggling in their seats is his goal, and he achieves it here. Squirming in their seats would be more like it. The audience is saying, "Oh, no he wouldn't push the envelope that far, gross out that much, and that's exactly what he does.
See my Amazon reviews of "The Cripple of Inishmaan," "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," and "In Bruges" for my comments on McDonagh's blood and gore, his violence, black humor, irony, and links to the theater of the absurd.
Nine Lives Too Many
The Daemon in Our Dreams
The Rice Queen Spy
Clawed Back from the Dead
A Bloody Good Play
I saw this play at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway (7/9/06, Sunday matinee) not even a week ago as of this writing. It was nominated for several Tony awards this season and I can easily understand why. It is absolutely the most outrageous comedy I have seen in years of theatregoing. Very dark. Very well written. Very funny. Worth the trip and definitely worth the read.
McDonagh challenges us to laugh at what would be normally very tense, dramatic, serious scenes. He has created a world populated by characters that think they are smart but we can see they have solutions and ideas that are idiotic. These absurdities make scene after scene strikingly laugh out loud funny, despite their violent conclusions.
The point well made - that terrorism is a fool's paradise and is pointless, creating needless hurt and confusion - is spelled out in comedic terms so well drawn that you laugh despite your better judgment. That is, until you understand the logic of placing humor front and center, as the most integral of survival skills.
 More existentialist than Tarantino
With the Tony nomination for Best Play this year, there might be some renewed interest in buying this book (the most recent review on this site was in 2003). This is laugh-out-loud funny stuff, and well worth reading. While "existentialist" may be a bit pretentious, this play deals with absurdity and futility in an atmosphere of constant violence and death. That McDonagh can make this material so funny is a tribute to his gift. This play I believe is a companion piece to McDonagh's Oscar-winning short film Six Shooter (available for download on iTunes), which deals with some of the same subjects, and also reserves its only tenderness for pets. I can see why people make the Tarantino comparison, but I see Tarantino as more of a stylist who sets out intricate time sequences and is less concerned about traditional narrative structures. McDonagh, by comparison, is very much into formal plot devices and structure.
Definitely not for those who don't enjoy black humor. For those who enjoyed The Pillowman (on Broadway last year), this one is an earlier play and doesn't have nearly the creativity and ambition of Pillowman. But it is still very well worthwhile, and a lot of fun.
Wow.
OK. I think McDonagh is a straight genius. I read this play, because I am currently in The Cripple of Inishmaan(the tame McDonagh play), but only because out director didn't think he could get the rights to this one. But I read this play, and I almost [messed] myself almost every other line. it is just that funny. I wish that we could have gotten the rights to it. It would be great to watch our director figure out how he would pull all this crazy stuff off. Overall, this is just a really funny, violent reason as to why I love the theatre. READ THIS SCRIPT. IT IS AMAZING. It is also very, very lean. No fat at all. A very short, perfect read.
Another production challenge from McDonagh
I directed McDonagh's "The Lonesome West" for the Station Theatre, Urbana, IL, in January 2000. (See 8am.com for reviews and links.) What an exhilarating ride! The new play -- like all of McDonagh's maddeningly vicious, hilarious efforts -- would be equally frustrating to stage, particularly the need for dead cats, live cats (covered with shoe polish), and other acts to drive directors mad. ("The Lonesome West" required dozens of Catholic religious figurines to be smashed nightly, not to mention an exploding oven and on-stage rain.) Certainly his staging challenges make these plays riveting to see, but they are equally rich in the reading. Be prepared to laugh... and then shocked at yourself for laughing.
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