My admiration for the Irish playwright Martin McDonagh only increases with each exposure. Last night I caught one of the final performances of The Cripple of Inishmaan, a co-production of the Atlantic Theater and the Druid Theatre in Galway.
One characteristic of McDonagh's prose is its recurring rhythms, circling like canons. A character is likely to throw out a sentence which its recipient will toss back in irony. A phrase will travel back and forth between two, even three people, accumulating meaning with each circuit. And now and then the plot will deftly pause, while a speaker makes self-referential comments on the very lines he or she has just spoken.
In other hands it might be too precious, but here McDonagh reveals deeply touching emotions. The title character (Billy) is brilliantly played by Aaron Monaghan, who delivers McDonagh's acid lines while juggling facial spasms and a twitching left shoulder, and lurches around the stage with one foot turned on its side. I won't reveal the entire plot, but it concerns Billy's decision to travel to America to become a movie star. Little does he know that a bit of family history will eventually come sneaking in, changing how he sees himself and the others in his universe. It is a slightly warmer side of McDonagh, in contrast to the black humor of The Lieutenant of Inishmore, or the disturbing tales related in The Pillowman.
The Druid's Garry Hynes directed, focusing on the story and the language, and her clean technique never calls attention to itself. It runs through Sunday, and if I weren't already committed to other things this weekend, I'd go again.