SEANNA VAN HELTEN reviews 23rd Productions’ performance of Martin McDonagh’s brutal comedy, THE PILLOWMAN.

23rd Productions has carved itself a niche in Brisbane’s theatre scene by producing quality, international plays by acclaimed contemporary playwrights, including Patrick Marber’s Closer and Simon Stephens’s Motortown. This year, as part of Metro Arts annual Independents program, 23rd Productions presents The Pillowman, by Anglo-Irish writer Martin McDonagh (The Lieutenant Of Inishmore, In Bruges). Directed for the company by Michelle Miall, The Pillowman is a disquieting study of the nature of storytelling, set in an unnamed totalitarian dystopia.

As the play begins, writer Katurian K. Katurian (Steven Rooke) sits blindfolded in a police interrogation room. Detectives Topolski (Norman Doyle) and Ariel (Rob Thwaites) enter, presenting Katurian’s vast collection of macabre short stories – twisted moral fables depicting abused children – as evidence of both his depraved character and his connection to three local child murders that bear strong similarities to Katurian’s writing. In the next cell, the writer’s older but "backward" brother Michal (Chris Vernon) is also being held under suspicion. Katurian is soon forced, under duress, into a confession, the likely outcome of which is execution without a trial.

To what extent Katurian is responsible for the three deaths, and to what extent his gruesome literary themes owe to his own violent past, are the central puzzles in playwright McDonagh’s tightly-wound plot. The Pillowman is a clever and chilling script, replete with both exacting wordplay and the brilliant, imaginative imagery of Katurian’s Brothers Grimm-like stories, which play a central role in the plot’s twists and turns. It is a bizarre jostle of menace and playfulness but, in McDonagh’s inimitable style, it works.

McDonagh pitches compelling questions without easy answers. This is not just a play about the responsibilities of the artist and his moral sway over his audience (the hoary argument that gets thrown around every time a murderer/paedophile/sadist admits to liking the work of Marilyn Manson/Bill Henson/Nintendo). The play’s most urgent subject is storytelling itself. "The first duty of the storyteller is to tell a story," intones Rooke’s thoughtful Katurian. "Or is that the only duty?" No story has a moral core powerful enough to incite a crime – a story is just a story. What that story reflects in each of our souls is a much more powerful tale.

Nevertheless, as we see when Katurian’s stories are brought to pantomime life by support cast Emma Pursey, Matthew Filkins and Emma Che Martin, the line between fact and fiction is a blurry one. Each of the characters is a storyteller, either in a literal sense or in the more spiritual way each of us lives according to the stories we tell ourselves.

Rooke is excellent in his complex role as the loyal but intensely proud Katurian. His foils are Doyle and Thwaites’ crooked cops, both nuanced and surprising performances that elicit the majority of audience laughs.

Director Miall gently steers the actors through the text’s most difficult turns, finding the comedic pace within McDonagh’s unlikely sources of humour. The re-enactment in the second act of Katurian’s most disturbing story, "The Little Jesus," is a highlight. At times the audience’s focus seems misdirected during some of the more tense moments, but the production is solid overall and carried with force by the central actors and, of course, McDonagh’s writing. Lighting designer Jason Glenwright replicates beautifully through filtered sidelights the broken beams of stage designer Amanda Karo’s dank, grey police cell, juxtaposed with a pop-up storybook backdrop.

The Pillowman has brought McDonagh numerous awards, and the play is sure to compound the kudos and recognition for emerging independent theatre company, 23rd Productions.

THE PILLOWMAN plays until April 4 at the Sue Benner Theatre, Metro Arts, 109 Edward Street, Brisbane. Ph:  3002 7100 or book tickets online at www.metroarts.com.au.

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