The Pillowman

Juilan Moore-Cook, Fra Fee and Aidan McArdle in The Pillowman. Image, Ros Kavanagh

****

Story. Commonly conflated with narrative. Yet the two are distinct. Narrative being one component, albeit an important one, of what constitutes a story. The phrase those who control the narrative control the people reminding us that story, and the freedom to tell it, determine who holds power. Martin McDonagh’s frightening once upon a times informing his dark and complex The Pillowman. Which interrogates stories about stories, stories within stories, and the danger of stories inspiring action, particularly in a totalitarian state. While there’s contemporary resonance in a time when stories condemning protests of genocide are used to distract from the actual genocide, McDonagh’s dark thoughts for little children also reflects the concerns of its time. First read in 1995, first production 2003, The Pillowman evokes 10 year old Jamie Bolger, murdered in 1993. Supplying the meat on The Pillowman’s narrative bones in the shape of how we maim and murder children, coupled with how we’d willingly die to preserve our stories with which we justify our actions.

Fra Fee in The Pillowman. Image, Ros Kavanagh

Jumping into the action, a blindfolded Katurian, an aspiring writer of four hundred stories, and his “retarded” brother Michal, are being interrogated by good cop, Detective Tupolski, and bad cop, Officer Ariel, all on account of Katurian’s stories. Fairytales in which children swallow razor blades, have toes dismembered, or are buried alive having physically endured the stations of the cross inflicted by their parents. Then there’s The Pillowman, a tale of a benevolent Bogeymen who advises young children to end their lives before they grow into an existence filled with horror. Yet the long arm of totalitarianism is seeking something beyond mere censorship. Trying to solve the recent murders of two children, along with a missing third, whose deaths mirror incidents in Katurian’s stories. The core theme of McDonagh’s tabooed tale revealed; the suffering of little children who come onto us. Abuse perpetrated on the most vulnerable, by the most vulnerable, and frequently on the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable; the deaf, the mute, the disabled child. The foundational story of Christianity reminding us that even God is not averse to abusing His children. That the alleged exceptions are actually the normalised rule. A living legacy in which even the police are victims of childhood violence, ensuring that history is doomed to repeat itself. Its actions justified in our stories. Whose power, politics and subtexts lead to dead or dying children.

Aidan McArdle in The Pillowman. Image, Ros Kavanagh

Narratively, little happens even though there’s a lot going on. Including a whodunnit, a race against time, another murder, some leisurely torture and a pressing execution. All interspersed with fairytales that try the patience in places. Stories whose dark aspects evoke the Brother’s Grimm. McDonagh’s dark humour providing uneven comic relief. If it sounds like a tough gig, that's because it is. Director Lyndsey Turner flip flopping between the texts competing demands. An initial Kafkaesque absurdism flipping into Freudian sins of the father before some second rate rumination on how suffering shapes the artist. McDonagh’s uneven hybrid of genres, under Turner’s pacy direction, never consistently coalescing into its own unique thing. Performances often shifting to accommodate tone rather than character. Alex Eales’s unimaginative black box set reinforcing the play’s darkness, like it needed the help. Katie Davenport’s costumes and Sinéad McKenna’s lighting functional at best. Kevin Gleeson’s sound and compositions over egging the omelette with brooding tones and some questionable choral contributions.

Juilan Moore-Cook in The Pillowman. Image, Ros Kavanagh

Whilst you wouldn’t recommend it for a first date, The Pillowman offers a wealth of dark musings, even if some feel clunkily forced. Fra Fee’s Katurian, oscillating from somebody prepared to burn their stories to someone prepared to give his life to preserve them, trots along nicely, but can seem more mouthpiece than character. Aidan McArdle as lead investigator Tupolski feeling far more cohered, perhaps for having less to do. A commanding Julian Moore-Cook, looking like a tough cop from a Sam Spade story, most successful as he shoulders his pain across stage ready to hurt at a moments notice. Ryan Dylan’s low key Michal, the embodiment of abuse and its effects, evoking Kevin McAleer’s downbeat, dead pan delivery. A supporting ensemble of Donncha O’Dea, Jade O’Connor, Ciara O’Sullivan, Ruby Gill, Freddie Cornally and Alexander Bellintani all strong as human marionettes enacting shifting tableaux for a number of stories, helping break up the monotony of having to sit and listen through yet another one.

Ryan Dylan in The Pillowman. Image, Ros Kavanagh

Unsettling, brave, and in many ways brilliant, The Pillowman makes for thought provoking theatre. Begging us to look at the monsters we want to avoid because we know we’ll be looking into a mirror. The Gate’s current production telling its own story. That’s the thing about stories, their intertextual, intersectional and contextual relationships often speaking to truths beyond the tale. Suggesting something really interesting might be happening at The Gate. But that’s a story for another day.

The Pillowman, by Martin McDonagh, runs at The Gate Theatre till September 7.

For more information visit The Gate Theatre