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The Pillowman
At
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
www.steppenwolf.org
1650 North Halsted Street
Chicago, Illinois 60614
312.335.1650
Martha Lavey: Artistic Director
David Hawkanson: Executive Director
By: Martin McDonagh
(Martin McDonagh Bio)
Featuring:
Abigail Droeger, Tracy Letts, Oliver Kal, Danny McCarthy, Leah Orleans,
Yasen Peyankov, Elizabeth Rich, Michael Shannon, Jim True-Frost, Quinn Wermeling
Director: Amy Morton
Assistant Director: Sean Graney
Casting Director: Erica Daniels
Scenic Design: Loy Arcenas
Assistant Set Designer: Christine Peters
Scenic Charge: Scott Gerwitz
Assistant Scenic Charge: Julie Ruscetti
Costume Design: Ana Kuzmanic
Hair and Make-Up Design: Kaity Licina
Lighting Design: Christopher Akerlind
Original Music and Sound Design: Robert Milburn and Michael Bodeen
Child Wrangler: Calyn P. Swain
Carpentry: Andrew Berg, David De La Fuente, Mark Jamerson,
Rebecca Kaplan, Chad Kenward, Carter Robbins
Wardrobe: Kaity Licina
Stage Manager: Robert H. Saterlee
Assistant Stage Manager: Michelle Medvin
State Management Apprentice: Jamie A. Burke
Running Crew: Caleb Franklin, Mary Marsh,
Brooke Widerman
Public Relations: William Nedved
Public Relations Associate: Jay Geneske
Susan Weinrebe
September 26, 2006
Just in time for Halloween comes The Pillowman. It is a tale of oppression, torture, murder and evil. Yet, it is not without its funny moments.
Martin McDonagh’s horror story opens in the interrogation room of a police station set in a totalitarian state. Jim True-Frost, a writer of ghastly tales, is being grilled by two cops, Tracy Letts and Yasen Peyankov. Too coincidentally for their procedural minds, a series of vile murders has taken place in their town. The officers can’t discount the similarities between the writer’s details and those of the cases they’re bound to solve.
Michael Shannon as Michal Katurian, the writer’s developmentally disabled brother, is the twist by which the police attempt to tighten the screws on Katurian. Brought into the station for questioning, he embodies the concrete thinking of a child but with a dreadful turn of mind. Any parent seeing this portrayal should think thrice about letting their children listen to, watch, or play games with violent content.
Foiled against the unfolding details of the crimes is a play within the play. A small stage set upon the actual stage is used to flashback on Katurian’s memories of his parents and his brother. Questions about the torquing power of absolute authority are raised in the context of the family and ultimately, the state.
Also foils for one another, and joking about being the good cop and the bad one, Peyankov and Letts are not what they at first seem. Cool and amusing in his asides, Letts as the good cop, provides humor and speed in the David Mamet-like clipped give and take with Peyankov. Seemingly bland in a John Lithgow sort of way, Letts is anything but benign as we learn to our horror.
Peyankov, as the intriguingly named Ariel, spirit of the air, gets a juicy turn at having a tantrum, pounding the sides of a file cabinet in rage. So well does he inhabit menace and fury, that any other behavior shocks, as it does here.
True-Frost captures the tight-throated fear of his writer character as he desperately tries to persuade the police that his writing is only fiction, not blueprints for murder. Adding to his terror is the interrogation of his brother in the next room.
Michael Shannon as the child-like brother is a study in arrested development. His hands are constantly in motion as he gestures and scratches without cease. He is big, powerful and innocent and like Lenny, in Of Mice and Men, cannot understand the consequences of his behavior.
Should a writer be held accountable for the behavior of someone who reads and acts on his words? What responsibility do writers have for what they put out in the world? Do they have the right to say anything they choose?
And what of the Pillowman? That most cozy of household furnishing, a pillow, contains a duality of purpose, like so much in this play.
Michael Shannon and ensemble member Jim True-Frost in The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh.
Photo courtesy of Michael Brosilow
Ensemble members Yasen Peyankov and Jim True-Frost in The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh.
Photo courtesy of Michael Brosilow
Ensemble members Yasen Peyankov, Jim True-Frost and Tracy Letts in The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh.
Photo courtesy of Michael Brosilow
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