Martin McDonagh's "The Cripple of Inishmaan” opens at TheatreWorks
2013-09-25
Martin McDonagh is a playwright who is not above combining humor and the darker (and often sadistic) underbelly of characters in his works. In this respect, he differs from most of his contemporaries. His “black comedies” are consequently a thing apart.
From the “The Leenane Trilogy” including The Beauty Queen of Leenane (1996), A Skull in Connemara (1997) and The Lonesome West (1997) to “The Aran Islands Trilogy” including The Cripple of Inishmaan (1996), The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001) and the unpublished The Banshees of Inisheer, McDonagh marks himself as the playwright of the unpleasant—and often, as in his 2003 The Pillowman, of the horrific. What other description can there be for dramatic scenarios involving murder, torture, crucifixion, dismemberment or the unnerving opening of one play when the curtain goes up on a cat’s intestines spilling out over a table? Whatever else, McDonagh is not a master of understatement.
The New Milford TheatreWorks is currently staging The Cripple of Inishmaan, a less bloodstained McDonagh comedy about a handful of eccentric Irish residents in the small—and insular—community of Inis Meáin. Among its population are a number of characters with their own unique personalities. Eileen (Susan Pettibone) and Kate (Sonny Osborne) are the “loopy” adoptive aunts of Billy (Joseph Russo), the eponymous hero of the comedy. Eileen has an abiding reverence for religion and the Virgin Mary (not to mention sneaking sweets from the shop they both run), while Kate is given to talking to stones. Billy is lame, referred to by villagers as “Cripple Billy,” and despite his native intelligence makes a pastime of staring at cows. He wants to escape the boredom of his life by auditioning for a Hollywood crew about to shoot a Robert Flaherty movie in a neighboring town.
Other characters include Johnnypateenmike (Tom Libonate), the local gossipmonger who exchanges his tidbits of hearsay for foodstuffs like lamb shanks and peas; Slippy Helen (Alison Bernhardt), a spitfire of a girl who is given a wide berth by men. She tosses eggs at priests, murders cats and geese for money and kicked her boss in the shins. She also attacks her brother, Bartley (James Hipp) an “awful thick” sibling who loves sweets and telescopes, and who once fell down a hole.
Then there is BabbyBobby (Keir Hansen), a family friend who can easily lose his temper when put upon, who transports Billy to his audition and is subsequently arrested for assaulting him with a lead pipe; Doctor McSharry (Frank Arcaro), a physician who can bring himself to a boiling point over Johnnypateenmike’s freewheeling diagnoses; and finally, the latter’s bedridden mother Mammy O’Dougal (Ellen Burnett/Jane Farnol), a woman devoted to drinking herself to death as breezily as possible.
Under Richard Pettibone’s direction, his cast of nine performers not only manages to convey how dotty its characters are, but how human and caring in every case they turn out to be. It’s as if the playwright had second thoughts about his brutal brushstrokes, only to soften them at the eleventh hour. Even Johnnypateenmike, who at first blush cuts a figure as the village buffoon, has a heroic side, as audiences will learn. And Slippy Helen, who earns the Cole Porter designation of “wild virago” throughout the length of the comedy, in the end shows Cripple Billy how really warm she is under her tempestuous exterior. All characters, in the face of blights like tuberculosis and advancing death, wind up more lovable than they were at the outset of the comedy.
There are several different approaches to acting that are in keeping with the thrust of McDonagh’s comedy, including a broader style, in contrast to adopting a more realistic or underplayed one. This critic favors the latter. Performers would highlight the comedic aspect of the dialogue to better advantage should they approach their characterizations with deadly seriousness. The alternative—portrayals that suggest an actor is underneath it all winking at the audience over the foibles of his or her character—runs the risk of incurring stereotypical representations, rather than the real thing. The TheatreWorks cast on occasion lapsed into this mode, although the first-night audience was enthusiastic about the production.