At the root of all good theater is simple oral storytelling. So it goes in The Pillowman, a series of short stories from the fertile, feral brain of Ireland’s Martin McDonagh, directed by Miami’s Zoetic Stage artistic honcho Stuart Maltzer with a cast of four worthy accomplices.
Unlike his usual darkly comic folk yarns set in remote rural villages of his native land (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Cripple of Inishmaan), The Pillowman is set in an unspecified totalitarian state. There, a fiction writer with the improbable name of Katurian Katurian has been detained by the police and interrogated about his manuscripts. It seems that the grisly events they depict are being mirrored in real life, including the mutilation and death of small children.
So in a stark, brightly lit interrogation room, a good cop-bad cop team (Michael McKeever, Gabriell Salgado) walk the writer through his literary output, much of which is concerned with parental abuse. There is a suggestion that these tales may have autobiographical roots, either for Katurian or, perhaps, for McDonagh himself. Either way, these stories could well be clues to the child murders. Or not.
Whatever is the case, the power of storytelling quickly kicks in and the narratives come live before us, performed by Katurian and the cops. Also implicated is Katurian’s mentally stunted brother Michal, also under custody in an adjacent interrogation cell. As Michal, Seth Trucks moves through acrobatic mood swings in a career best performance that is the equivalent of a high-wire act.
Be forewarned, these stories are indeed dark in tone, though not without a veneer of humor. Among their elements are severed digits and ingested razor blades, as well as a little girl who believes herself to be the Second Coming of Christ. The story from which the entire evening get its name concerns a mysterious figure that woos youngsters to their death.
As Katurian, Ryan Didato completely claims ownership of these stories with his commanding verbal skill. His cooperation with the police is tied to his urgent desire to gain a promise from them that regardless of his own fate, his stories will live on. This seems to be author McDonagh speaking through his character, voicing a concern that his work will survive him. With work as bold as The Pillowman, and with productions as seductive as Zoetic Stage’s, McDonagh’s legacy appears assured.
Editor’s note: A technical problem prevented this review from being published before the run of the show ended Sunday.