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A Superhuman Attempt at Staging Martin McDonagh´s Pillowman (Pan Polštář) - K. Černá
Three years after the Drama Club’s successful production of The Lonesome West (Osiřelého západu), the theatre presented a second play by Martin McDonagh – Pillowman (Pan Polstář) – within the framework of the “Irish Season”. Ondřej Sokol again directed an outstanding production with his talented actors.
The cruel “fairytale” of the Pillowman is again performed in a vaguely defined totalitarian country; in itself, the plot brings forth a magical ghostliness of Irish horror stories, combined with the brutality of today. Writer Katurian, accused of horrendously murdering children, and his retarded brother Michael survived a hell of child abuse in their youth. The story of both brothers is gradually pieced together through their responses during the interrogation, as well as through Katurian´s indirect, bizarre tales, narrated by the investigators and by Katurian himself.
The greyish-green colour of the walls and doors on the stage of the Drama Club underline the uniformity and austerity of the police interrogation and the adjacent jail cells where the play takes place. There is only a table that has seen better days, a couple of chairs, an office registry – and four excellent performances. Michal Pavlata and Jaromír Dulava as the “good” and “bad” police officers, Marek Taclík as the mentally disturbed Michal and Ondřej Vetchý as writer Katurian. Vetchý, with an unusual sensitivity for subtleties, captures Katurian´s initial helplessness from the Kafkaesque situation of desperation and his subsequent resigned sorrow and single-minded obstinacy with which his character chooses not to save his own life but his literature.
The filthy back wall of the interrogation chamber is often transparent; behind it another performance space appears. Here short pantomime sequences depicting Katurian´s drastic tales are acted out. Their chintzy naïveté functions as a metaphorical parallel of the “real” action, as a defined relief of his abhorrent details.
McDonagh stated in one interview that there must exist some moments when one can catch a glimpse of something decent, a pleasurable life, in even the most warped character.“ To retell McDonagh´s bloody tale brilliantly and with intensity, and at the same time retaining a spark of hope, is a superhuman feat: the director and actors of the Drama Club have achieved at doing this.
Drama Club Prague (Činoherní klub Praha): Martin McDonagh: Pillowman (Pan Polštář).
Translation and direction: Ondřej Sokol, stage design Adam Pitra,
costumes Katarína Hollá.
Czech premiere June 9, 2005, Prague.
Photo courtesy of the Drama Club Prague.
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