awesome..though I don't like child endangerment story lines ( )

واقعاً تنها دلخوشی این روزهای خسته کننده‌ی پر از دانشگاه و کار می‌تونه کتاب خوندن باشه و چقدر خوب که این نمایشنامه عالی و خوب رو خوندم... واقعاً فکرش رو نمی‌کردم که انقدر این نمایشنامه خوب باشه اما صفحه به صفحه‌ای که می‌خوندم بیشتر مجذوبش می‌شدم... نمایشنامه پر از پیرنگه... به غیر از پیرنگ اصلی داستان چند پیرنگ به عنوان داستان‌های کوتاه نویسنده داخلش بازی می‌شه که همه‌ی اون‌ها غنای خاصی به پیرنگ اصلی بخشیده... واقعاً اگه از یه کار سوررئال و نمادین لذت می‌برید پیشنهاد می‌کنم هرگز این رمان رو از دست ندید. ( )

Gyomrokat felkészíteni, mert az első oldalakon rándul görcsbe, fordul fel, és nagyjából úgy is marad végig. Akinek gyereke van, szerintem ne olvassa. Iszonyat kemény darab. És baromi érdekes feszegetése az írói felelősségnek és az írói hiúságnak. A fordulatokkal vagyok kicsit bajban, mert az egyik, ami talán annak lehetett szánva, az első pillanattól egyértelmű volt. Talán mégsem szánta fordulatnak a szerző, és persze a hátteret rémálmodni sem lehetett volna. Majd most. A másikat is részben tudni lehetett, bár a végére az a gyomorkioldás azért baromi jólesett. McDonagh nem mondatta ki senkivel a nyomozó sztorijának logikai hibáit (miszerint az öregember menti meg a síneken gyalogló siket fiút a háta mögött közeledő vonattól, de a fiú egyrészt érezné a sínek rezgésében, hogy jön a vonat, másrészt ha a hallókészülékből tudja az öregember, hogy siket, akkor éppen remekül hall is, nem? – több helyen belekérdezett mondjuk az épp kihallgatott író, mert elég döcögős volt a sztori logikája, erre a tényre felhívta a figyelmet, de mindent azért nem rágott a szánkba, sőt, indoka is van nem folytatni a nyomozóval való kötözködést – egyre jobban tetszik ez a rész), szerintem bízott az olvasóban/nézőben, ez tetszik. Az érzések ilyen skáláját ilyen intenzitással megmozgatni a nézőben/olvasóban, ráadásul ilyen rövid idő alatt, ez egészen bámulatos. Hiába kacsintgat ki többször is, hogy helló, ez csak egy szöveg, nem a valóság, most azért kell egy kis idő, míg összeszedem magam. ( )

"The first duty of a storyteller is to tell a story." Katurian is confused. Perhaps it's, "The only duty of a storyteller is to tell a story." Can it be both? Do stories hold more than what they offer? Ever talk to an English major? Ever ask the same question to someone in the math department? The answers will vary. Is it up to the writer to leave messages, reasons, symbols, explanations, statements, philosophies, etc. within his stories? Or is it solely the reader's duty to find the scripture?

In his play, The Pillowman, Martin McDongah leaves it up to us to decide. Or not to decide. Or rather, forces upon us to see what might lay upon the page. But his character, Katurian warns us - what we read upon the page might always be true. Nor what we see with our eyes.

The story opens with Katurian sitting in an interrogation room with hot tempered Ariel and collected Tupolski. He doesn't know why he's there in the first place - perhaps some read into his short stories, seeing political insults towards the country. He hopes he can clear up any misunderstanding. What he doesn't know is that his dark stories are linked toward the grizzly deaths of two children and one missing girl. And the police are dead certain and Katurian and his brother Michal are behind it all.

Bold, dark and hauntingly beautiful, The Pillowman will grab your attention by the short hairs and lead you down its wicked little path, never allowing you to lose focus on the purpose - what exactly makes a man a monster?

The twists and turns of the story keep you moving forward. I sorta wish I could see a live performance of the play - anyone know where I can find a recording? - especially the version in which Jeff Goldblum portrays Tupolski. ( )

A former professor of mine once dismissed the original BBC Office as “self-congratulatory.” I laughed at the time and disagreed with him, but his phrase comes in handy when thinking abut The Pillowman, which reads as if a college sophomore who had binged on Tarantino and Pinter sat down to write a play. I say this with the utmost conviction, as I am certain that, at 19, I would have loved this thing. The meta-theatrical conceits! The language! The verbal violence! The puzzles! The occasions for talking to one’s roommate in sentences beginning, “No—that’s the whole point! The guy’s stories don’t make murders happen—and that shows the relationship between art and life, even though we are told later that the murders—” etc. Now, at 45, this stuff seems much more tame than Antigone and certainly more tame than Oleanna or Speed the Plow. One is also reminded of Stoppard while reading this, but Stoppard is smarter.

I can hear McDonagh’s admirers now, perhaps assuming that I’m some waif or fuddy-duddy shocked by the violence. Wrong. The violence itself isn’t shocking although it is awful. What makes The Pillowman so self-indulgent is that the violence lacks any kind of moral center. Tarantino’s films are all informed by moral quandaries, which is why Mr. Orange’s last words in Reservoir Dogs make the audience gasp. Even popular fictions like The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby work because of a moral center to which the storytellers appeal. Not here. Instead, we get an onstage dramatization of a story titled “The Little Jesus Girl,” prefaced by the stage direction, “The dreadful details of the following are all acted out onstage.” Fine, by all means, show the story of the crucified girl—but don’t do so as an excuse to display your own naughtiness. (“Is he really going there? My word!”) Not only does that make the whole thing empty—it also makes it boring. And yes, I can already hear the refrain But that’s the point! I admit to being too old to care. The wisest thing said in the play is when the author / victim states of his work, “I’m not trying to say anything at all!” Nonsense. The entire set up—in which two terrifying critics—er, cops—torture an innocent—er, guilty, er, cutely ambiguous—writer into explaining himself is an invitation for an audience to laugh along—or be laughed at. The whole thing has a built-in fail-safe designed to make any review such as this one seem like it was written by a rube. So be it.

One more thing. It comes to me, later, after having written this, that the above is the same point made by Norman Mailer in his review of American Psycho, a review I read for the first time about a month ago when I was killing time at the library. That's a book worth reading: Mind of an Outlaw, the new anthology of his essays.

Update. A few weeks later, thinking there had to be more to McDonagh, I read The Beauty Queen of Leenane. While better than The Pillowman, it's still thin soup.
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