Mike's review
The Pillowman: A Play
by Martin McDonagh
i saw this with S. in the theatre in miami and it was so bad we walked out. i'll read it, though, since both you and jeff seem to like it so damn much.
You walked out of a play? I can never do that.
To be honest, Gio, I'm gonna doubt you'd like this any more on the page than on the stage. Maybe start with McDonagh's "The Cripple of Inishmaan," instead? You get the full force of his aesthetic, snarls and smarts and sarcasm aboil, but it's perhaps more accessible in its (seeming) point.
really? (you can never walk out of a play?).
you could if you lived in miami.
really, though, it was baaaadly acted.
Walking out of a movie I've managed. But a play--even, perhaps especially if badly acted--I'd just feel horrible for the people on stage. I'd be squirming in the seat, but I'd not want to bother them.
i know. but i felt so ripped. it wasn't even cheap.
i wonder why you say that i wouldn't like pillowman even if i read it.
Well,
a, I was mostly assuming that since you had found the play so terrible that nothing would redeem it in the book.
But maybe also (b) an assumption based on some of your reactions to various violent things, or maybe black-comic violent stories. You liked Chan-wook Park (and "Oldboy" etc.), but you don't like most other ... so I was guessing.
a + b and I thought I had a decent assumption. Plus I hate recommending something I love and then having someone else hate it. Makes me feel like a failure.
But maybe you'll dig it!
noooo, you, a failure??? didn't i just write on WLTW what a blessing you are???
if i don't like it i'll keep it to myself!
Mike's review
The Pillowman: A Play by Martin McDonagh
Mike's review
rating:
I just re-read this, in preparation for teaching it, and--damn--it's good. I first read the play upon its initial run in England, and yet I find now--with the subsequent foreground of torture into our political discussions--the play engages on even more cylinders.
A key thing--to toss to Gio?--is that McDonagh, here and in most of his work, resists or confounds identification. The poles of this play's conflict are between totalitarian interrogators and a writer of repugnant, vicious material. It's a nice disruption of our desires for the neat opposition, and I particularly dug the way he deploys the "disabled" brother Michal in ways which evade and elude the simple characterizations of "the simple" in most mass culture.
Plus it's damn funny. Glad I'm getting this chance to see it tossed around in the classroom.
A key thing--to toss to Gio?--is that McDonagh, here and in most of his work, resists or confounds identification. The poles of this play's conflict are between totalitarian interrogators and a writer of repugnant, vicious material. It's a nice disruption of our desires for the neat opposition, and I particularly dug the way he deploys the "disabled" brother Michal in ways which evade and elude the simple characterizations of "the simple" in most mass culture.
Plus it's damn funny. Glad I'm getting this chance to see it tossed around in the classroom.
i saw this with S. in the theatre in miami and it was so bad we walked out. i'll read it, though, since both you and jeff seem to like it so damn much.
You walked out of a play? I can never do that.To be honest, Gio, I'm gonna doubt you'd like this any more on the page than on the stage. Maybe start with McDonagh's "The Cripple of Inishmaan," instead? You get the full force of his aesthetic, snarls and smarts and sarcasm aboil, but it's perhaps more accessible in its (seeming) point.
really? (you can never walk out of a play?). you could if you lived in miami.
really, though, it was baaaadly acted.
Walking out of a movie I've managed. But a play--even, perhaps especially if badly acted--I'd just feel horrible for the people on stage. I'd be squirming in the seat, but I'd not want to bother them.
i know. but i felt so ripped. it wasn't even cheap.i wonder why you say that i wouldn't like pillowman even if i read it.
Well, a, I was mostly assuming that since you had found the play so terrible that nothing would redeem it in the book.
But maybe also (b) an assumption based on some of your reactions to various violent things, or maybe black-comic violent stories. You liked Chan-wook Park (and "Oldboy" etc.), but you don't like most other ... so I was guessing.
a + b and I thought I had a decent assumption. Plus I hate recommending something I love and then having someone else hate it. Makes me feel like a failure.
But maybe you'll dig it!
noooo, you, a failure??? didn't i just write on WLTW what a blessing you are??? if i don't like it i'll keep it to myself!