I just finished The Pillowman and it is very very very dark stuff. It’s about power, it’s about guilt, it’s about family, it’s about an artist’s desperation just to be noticed even if they are to be despised, it has graphic descriptions of violence towards children and yet somehow, SOMEHOW, it made me laugh. McDonagh really is a genius. I bet when this was performed many of the laughs were laughs of relief; of pressure being released out of the theater but when you just read it you don’t get that communal reassurance. You have to let yourself off the hook and it’s just different. It’s a tad twisted. But it’s self-evidently brilliant.
I’ll read one more McDonough before I move on to something else. Next up is the Lieutenant of Inishmore. I’ll report back. I tentatively have Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? lined up. Shoot, after another one of these plays I’m probably going to need a therapy in hardback anyway!
Note: I just discovered that McDonagh literally wrote a play called “A Very Very Very Dark Matter”. At least we’re aligned. He is an absurdist sadist.
