Luscious Literature - The Pillowman

By Elizabeth Adler
Collegian Editor
February 6, 2008

“It’s a bit downbeat, I’ll admit,” says Katurian Katurian, the protagonist of The Pillowman, by Martin McDonagh. Katurian, an author who writes disturbing short stories, is describing one of them, although his sentiments could be used to describe the entire play. But downbeat doesn’t mean negative.

The play opens in an interrogation room in a totalitarian state, with the bright light of inquisition shining on Katurian, who is being imprisoned because of his gruesome tales of violence and abuse. Given the knowledge that an author of controversial stories is being held captive by two very government-bred detectives, you might assume, just like Katurian, the reason for his imprisonment is for being politically incorrect in a society where the mere idea of offending the government is reason enough to be hauled away and quietly taken care of.

But this is not the case. You find out, once the play picks up, and it does so very quickly, that some of Katurian’s unpublished stories, some of the more horrific ones involving crimes against children, are being acted out. The two insistent detectives, one more physically insistent than the other, are intent on finding a missing child believed to be tortured and possibly murdered just like a child in one of Katurian’s stories.

Intermixed with the interrogation and the sequence of events in which Katurian’s mentally retarded brother, Michal, is also brought in for questioning, the mysteries surrounding Katurian’s stories, and his motivation for creating such disturbing material is revealed, which leads to the shocking truth regarding the missing child.

From there, the reader can no longer anticipate what happens next. The ride The Pillowman takes you on is not one that involves twists and turns, although there are plenty of them; it has deep drops, ones that make you fall down unexpectedly, but somehow manage to pick you up and make you forget that you fell that hard.

What helps to pick you up is the humor. While the play may be crushingly dark, it is sprinkled with morbid comedy that McDonagh manages to make funnier than it should be. The Pillowman is a turbulent mix of violence and comedy, one which some may find to be too over the top, but which I find to be a clever concoction of different elements that make the play end up meaning something different to each person. For me, The Pillowman gave the acute sense of being emotionally self-aware, but at the same time hungry for something more.

Long after you have finished The Pillowman, you will still be trying to figure out what you read. It may evoke the same sentiments of Kafka or Stoppard, with subtle references to novels and other items in pop culture. The name Katurain Katurian is not just one of the comic elements to the play; it is reminiscent of Nabokov’s characte, Humbert Humbert, and Heller’s character Major Major.

McDonagh’s characters are tough to figure out. Once their tricky pasts are revealed, it is hard to decide what they are. Are they murderers? Heroes? Victims? All three? McDonagh manages to twist not only the plot, but the characters in such a way that it is impossible to untie all the intricacies woven in.

As much as I would like it to be, The Pillowman is not a play for everyone. Prerequisites are enjoying brutally dark comedy and having a strong enough stomach and a mind open enough to accept the violent means to a perfectly melodramatic and emotionally profound ending.

I was overwhelmed after I read The Pillowman, but in a good way. It gave me a lot to contemplate, but then I realized that overall, I was extremely impressed. I was impressed with the way McDonagh created such a dangerous blend of brutality and wit. But I was more than just impressed by The Pillowman; I was inspired.

adlere1@lasalle.edu