Once Upon a Time in a far away totalitarian dictatorship, Katurian (Lily Allen) was blindfolded in a police station being tormented and threatened by Tupolski (Steve Pemberton) and Ariel (Paul Kaye). With these three performing The Pillowman, a play by Martin McDonagh, I thought I was in for a good time. How wrong was I, writes Michael Holland.
Katurian is a writer of short stories and doesn’t understand why she is being interrogated. Nor do we, until Tupolski begins reading her stories back to her. Gruesome, horrific tales of child abuse and murder make us think there is some hidden anti-government metaphor in there. Is she mocking the system or the despot running the country? But, no, there is a spate of child killings that copy the murders in her stories. Could Katurian be the serial killer?
As dark as it is, the even darker comedy within periodically stabs you in the front and jabs you into guilty laughter.
After a beating, Katurian gets banged up with her intellectually-challenged brother Michal (Matthew Tennyson)who has grown up on her stories. For comfort, he asks her to tell him the one about the green pig and remind him of the one about the boy tortured by his parents, and the one about The Pillowman who helps children die happily. Michal, we find, has his own tale to tell.
This is a story about stories and each one we hear takes us deeper and deeper into Katurian’s private hell.
Ariel finds himself enjoying some of Katurian’s, secretly admiring her while despising her enough to plug her into the mains for shock treatment. He himself, we discover, was abused as a child and his whole raison d’être has been to lock up, torture and execute child abusers.
The Pillowman shows that those abused and damaged as children very often go on to abuse others. Research shows that just about every psychopath had a tormented upbringing.
The Pillowman is not an easy watch and the middle section, where Michal and Katurian are in a cell discussing their predicament, outstays its welcome. Almost grotesquely, it was nice to get back to the good cop/bad cop police violence scenes where at least there was the respite of black humour to relieve the horror.
It is a very clever piece of work. It has us guessing and then guessing again, but with each revelation, we realise we were wrong and find ourselves falling into another black hole.
But despite superb performances from the main protagonists, great dialogue and truly fantastic short stories from the writer, when put together, I’d rather not spend almost three hours being told life is not good.
Duke of York’s Theatre, St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4BG until September 2nd. Times: Mon-Sat 7.30pm, Wed & Sat matinees at 2.30pm. Admission: £20 – £140
Booking: 0333 009 6690 – www.Pillowmanplay.com
