|
Theatre South Carolina brings a new, award-winning comedy-drama to Columbia audiences with the opening of Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman.
 |
| Martin McDonagh |
A kind of macabre fable, The Pillowman is a viciously funny and savage play, pumped full of narrative drive. In a totalitarian state, a writer is interrogated about his nightmarish short stories--stories in which very bad things happen to children--and their similarities to a number of murders occurring in his town. When the writer's mentally impaired brother is also brought in for questioning, what started as a detective story takes unforeseen twists and turns.
The Pillowman played to critical acclaim in London where it won the Olivier Award for best play and in New York where it was nominated for a Tony and received the Critics Circle award for best play. McDonagh's other plays include The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Cripple of Inishmaan and Tony nominees The Lonesome West and The Lieutenant of Inishmore. His short film Six Shooter won a 2006 Academy Award.
| To read an independent review of this production, click here. |
In style, The Pillowman is somewhere between the Brothers Grimm and Quentin Tarantino.
"The fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and the Frenchman Charles Perrault were originally often gruesome, dark, and death-obsessed," said Tim Donahue, Theatre South Carolina marketing director. "In translations and later editions, and especially in many Disney movies, the stories were softened and sanitized for a young audience. The stories in The Pillowman return to the nightmare quality of the first fairy tales. This is not a play for children or those easily upset by stage violence."
Remembering the key phrase, 'Once upon a time...' is the key, said Jim O'Connor, head of USC's MFA directing program and director of this production. "This is a story about telling stories. It's a truly theatrical piece. It couldn't be a movie. The play is about the escape of the imagination from prison--real prison and metaphorical prison."
Scenography for USC's production is being created by Obie award-winner Nic Ularu, assisted by MFA candidates Corinne Robinson on costumes and Carl Hamilton on sets. Lighting design is by guest artist Michael Philippi, winner of the Tony award for his lighting design for the fiftieth anniversary revival of Death of a Salesman on Broadway.
1/07
|
Michael Downey plays the unfortunate writer in Theatre South Carolina's production of The Pillowman.
