The Pillowman
wri. Martin McDonagh
Berkeley Rep

"Morgan Freeman once said that Ernest Hemmingway once wrote that the world is a fine place and worth fighting for. Morgan agreed with the second part. I think it's all a crock of shit."
-Warren Demontague, alcoholic ape

"Suffer the little children to come unto me."
-Josua bar-Joseph, carpenter & roustabout

Once upon a time, there was a writer named Katurian. Katurian K. Katurian. As his name indicates, Katurian's parents had been a bit...peculiar.

One day, Katurian is arrested and interrogated by two policemen: Tupolski and Ariel. Now, Tupolski would describe himself as the "good cop" with Ariel taking the role of "bad cop," but as is usually the case, it would be more apt to describe them as "bad cop" and "worse cop."

Living as he did in an unspecified "totalitarian state," Katurian was at a loss to understand why he had been singled out for this extraordinary attention. He was a writer and an intellectual, it was true, but he had assiduously avoided any political or subversive topics in his work, preferring instead to focus on the lives of unfortunate children who were often subjected in his work to violent or otherwise horrible mistreatment.

Which was not to say that he approved of that sort of thing or meant to encourage the mistreatment of children. Rather, having been scarred himself by some of his parents non-alliterative "peculiarities," though not moreso than his poor, poor brother, Michal...no certainly not more than Michal...it was not surprising that this theme, though he hated themes, would find its way eventually into his work.

Not that he believed a storyteller was essentially an autobiographist. That was just lazy storytelling. Autobiographical elements were sure to seep in to any good story, but to fall willingly into that decadence was, well...anyway, he didn't mean anything by it.

It was only when Tupolski showed him the pictures of the dead children...children killed in manners similar to those described in his stories...that Katurian came to understand that this was no mere political persecution, no intimidation for intimidation's sake.

He was being accused of...

Well...

It was hard to say, exactly. They made it sound, oh, yes, it SOUNDED, as if they thought that HE'D...but, surely, no, he hadn't. Maybe if someone had read his stories and been inspired to...

...but...

Then again, only one of his stories had ever been published. How would the killer have known about the others?

How, indeed, Katurian.

"The Pillowman" is not an easy ride by any stretch of the imagination.

Long, clocking in at over 2 1/2 hours, it never drags. Every moment is tight, every line of dialogue rich and shaded with meaning. And each character complex. Katurian is at once cowardly and equivocal yet moral and courageous. The police are fascistic yet well-motivated to remove a child killer from the streets. Michal's innocence is matched only by his casual brutality.

Comparisons can be made to Ariel Dorfman's "Death and the Maiden," where justice hangs in the thin margin between truth and recollection. Small wonder that the "worse cop" shares Dorfman's name.

Yet, while that play centered around adults, this play is about children, making it all the more difficult to watch. The brutality of the interrogation and the killings surrounding it is always in plain view.

Four stars. Jason J. Jason sez, this is what theater is for.