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'The Pillowman': Dark tale is stark, well-done and timely

Seale shows skill in his Actors Guild directorial debut

By Candace Chaney Contributing Theater Critic

In his director's notes for Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman, Actors Guild of Lexington's latest offering, Eric Seale warns, "History teaches us that any fair-minded society is four bad decisions and 10 years away from being a completely repressive authoritarian government."

Set in a "once upon a time" world, The Pillowman — which premiered to rave reviews on Broadway in 2005, a year after it debuted in London — is a dark version of a possible future in which brute government authority reigns at the expense of little things like liberty and justice for all.

A writer, Katurian (Bob Singleton), is interrogated and tortured by police for his involvement in child killings that bear a striking resemblance to fictional stories he had written. Katurian claims he didn't do it. What follows is a disturbing journey through Katurian's stories and his past that leads to even more disturbing truths.

The stark, jarring tone of the show is in keeping with Lexington theater veteran Seale's affinity for taking on challenging, edgy material, and his AGL directorial debut is no different. The result is a show whose signature bleak intensity and noir humor is both its greatest strength and occasional liability. It takes some time and attention, for instance, to realize good cop/bad cop duo Tupolski and Ariel (Timothy J. Hull and Mike Van Zant) are more than ego-driven jerks. When their emotional complexities are finally revealed, however, the effect is even more jarring. So in a sense, what doesn't work at first — the early disconnect between characters as they appear and as they actually are — is precisely what works in the end. The show’s sudden revelations are somehow more potent as a result.

(Theatergoers might be familiar with the storyline. Lexington’s Balagula Theatre mounted a different production earlier this year.)

Actors Guild’s production is full of emotional seesaws. One minute, Katurian's brother Michal (Leif Erickson Rigney) appears innocently simple, and when we learn what monstrosities he is capable of, we are stunned. Similarly, Katurian's cold capacity for writing unimaginably gruesome stories is contrasted with moments of aching tenderness toward his brother. At any moment the show might veer from the futile emptiness of despair and hopelessness to the rich but frightening world of Katurian's imagination to fleeting but powerful moments of compassion and forgiveness.

Even the set is emotionally divided. Nicola Riggs’ scenic design is strikingly ripe with layered, symbolic meanings and works in organic synchronicity with the actors. A sense of all-pervasive decay lingers in the interrogation room, a run-down old room with missing tiles, overstuffed filing cabinets, cheap furniture and one lone lightbulb. Above the interrogation room a second tier of the stage lurks in shadow with the silhouette of two large boxes that suggest the shape of coffins, foreshadowing the impending doom of the writer and his brother. Lighting designer David Probus further cultivates this divide by creating lushly haunted recreations of Katurian's stories. Surreal visuals, like the mock crucifixion of a little girl (McKenna Dallas Rigney), are boldly delivered in contrast to the deteriorating interrogation room.

Did I mention that this show is a comedy? You wouldn't think so, but it boasts humor of the blackest variety. Sometimes the dark jokes and clever jabs seem uncomfortably inappropriate, like it might be wrong or untoward to laugh in moments of horrific tragedy, but then again, the humor of the show is also its saving grace, the element that makes the tale's cruel truths somehow more bearable. If you go to see the show, keep in mind that, as Seale emphasizes in the program notes, it really is OK to laugh.

Finally, with the global economy currently teetering dangerously close to disaster, two seemingly unending wars on the horizon, and civil liberties in jeopardy, it doesn't take a political pundit to draw relevant connections between McDonagh's future world and Katurian's plight to our current political landscape.

Still, the play's science fictionlike political undertones and black humor are subtle in comparison to the play's main theme: the indomitable power of story.