Martin Mcdonagh's The Pillowman

On November 20th, my sister and I attended an astonishing play called The Pillowman at the Newnan Theatre Company in Coweta. The Pillowman was originally written in 2003 by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. The play takes place in an interrogation room in an unnamed totalitarian state. A middle aged writer named Katurian (played by Arden Avery) is being questioned by two detectives Tulposki (played by P. David miller) and Ariel (played by Robert Stowe) while his older brother Michal (played by Nikolas Carleo) waits in a holding cell next door. The detectives question him about why all his stories contain brutal child murders, and more importantly, why they match some recent child murders in the area. The director, Bert Lyons, did a stupendous job producing this chilling thriller and the actors did an equally fantastic job playing the roles of these characters. …show more content…
Over the years, however, Katurian’s stories tended to get darker and darker as he listened to the paralyzing sounds of his older brother Michal, who was born “different” than he was, get tortured by his parents in the next room. Katurian went from writing sweet stories about pigs and bunnies to writing horrifying murder tales about mistreated children. As Michal grew older, Katurian would often read these stories to him while he lay beaten and bruised in his room. Throughout the play, there would be brief intermissions where they would play a flashback of Katurians childhood, or a clip of one of the stories Katurian had written. These clips flowed nicely within the storyline of the play and helped to create an eerie mood that had people on the edge of their seats. The dialogue between the characters also helped to set a certain type of mood within the