Late in the closing moments of ACT Theatre's [0] solid staging of Martin McDonagh's [1] "The Pillowman," Tupolski, the senior detective investigating a grisly series of child murders, decides he's had it with everyone blaming their lousy adulthoods on their lousy childhoods.
"My father was a violent alcoholic," he says. "Am I a violent alcoholic? (Pause.) YES!"
It's part of the point McDonagh's trying to make about responsibilities both social and artistic, in this disturbing and fiendishly funny story of a writer who sincerely believes that "the first duty of a storyteller is to tell a story" — apparently at any cost.
Matthew Floyd Miller is Katurian K. Katurian ("my parents were funny people"), a writer in a totalitarian state whose grim fairytales may be the blueprints for a slaughter of innocents. His good cop/bad cop interrogators are a rapid-fire comic duo with lethal intentions ("we like executing writers...it sends out a signal"), and his dimwitted brother is unwittingly confessing them both into an early grave just down the hall. But what's really got the writer worried is the possibility that his captors might make good on their threat to destroy his "stories." For Katurian this is a fate worse than the often-threatened bullet to the brainpan. He can face death, but not artistic annihilation.
This is not your mama's usual ACT. This is bold stuff and it's evident from the moment you're confronted by the functionally intimidating set -- nearly a character unto itself -- and an opening salvo of dialogue that snaps like a multi-car drive-by. The bookend interrogation scenes are simply electric. TV/film veteran Denis Arndt (Tupolski) and R. Hamilton Wright (Ariel) play good cop/bad cop like sociopathic KGB versions of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck. The cool Tupolski wants answers ("I'm a detective. Sometimes I like to detect"). The explosive Ariel is "a police dog," played by Wright as a man consumed by his own righteous fury.
The rest of the cast is solid as well, but it's Miller's Katurian who carries the show. He has to — Katurian is in every minute of the play. Miller and director Kurt Beattie do a nice job of keeping the audience on the fence as Katurian's fate is decided.
There is nothing fluffy about "The Pillowman." McDonagh counts David Mamet and Quentin Tarantino among his major influences and that's plenty evident. The imagery is often extremely disturbing, and the language is, shall we say, salty. There were a few empty seats after intermission on opening night. That's too bad. They missed the standing ovation.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
