Martin McDonagh Takes His Tea Black

Review: The Cripple of Inishmaan
Linda Gross Theater (Off-Broadway), New York
March 14, 2009

I never got around to discussing this play back in March. Maybe it was my excitement over being first in line and getting one of only two rush tickets. Maybe I wanted to read it on paper.

No matter. McDonagh's worth bragging about belatedly. He's a playwright that sticks with you. Sure, there's the call-response humor, based on repetition and day-by-day life in a country shop on the Irish island of Inishmaan:

BARTLEY: Do ya have any Mintios?
EILEEN: We have only what you see, Bartley McCormick.
BARTLEY: In America they do have Mintios.
EILEEN: Go to America so.
BARTLEY: Me Aunty Mary did send me seven Mintios in a package. [...] But you have none?
EILEEN: We have only what you see.
BARTLEY: You should get some Mintios really, because Mintios are nice sweeties. You should get somebody in America to go sending you some. In a package. [...] Do ya have any Yalla-mallows?
EILEEN: We have only what you see.
BARTLEY: They do have Yalla-mallows in America.
EILEEN: Oh aye. I suppose your Aunty Mary did send you some in a package.
BARTLEY: No. She sent me a photograph of some in a package. The only proper sweeties she sent me were the seven Mintios.

McDonagh is primarily a playwright who surprises, and not just in fleeting thrills. It's the goosepimpled, edge-of-your-seat back-and-forth in banter and conflict that pulses without a break. He's also unafraid to go anywhere, and without any apologies. The hero of The Cripple of Inishmaan is, as the characters call him, Cripple Billy, and McDonagh doesn't sentimentalize him. His aunts think he's helpless; the villagers josh and jostle him, none of which McDonagh spares:

BILLY: They say it was that Dad punched Mammy while she was heavy with me was why I turned out the way I did.
DOCTOR: Disease caused you to turn out the way you did, Billy. Not punching at all. Don't go romanticizing it.

McDonagh's black humor can be cruel. After reading The Pillowman and The Lieutenant of Inishmore, though, I was shocked this time. There's a great deal of humanity in Billy's misfortune. When a film crew comes to Ireland, he grabs his chance and hops on a boat to America for a screen test. Though he's not chosen for the film in the end, the odd one out as always, Billy sees equal amounts of joy and sadness in coming home to loved ones, even if they make fun of his hobbling and wheezing. McDonagh rewards his actors with solid characters. Off-Broadway, Aaron Monaghan as a conflicted, half-indecipherable Billy and Dearbhla Molloy as a sweet but stern Eileen were the highlights of a strong (mostly Irish) ensemble.

McDonagh specializes in bait and switch. We learn three different renderings of his parents' death, and whether they wanted Billy to live. Allegiances shift constantly. The ending rockets between utter despair and pot-o'-gold ebullience. This is tamer than his other plays: I expected blood-drenched violence, and nobody died! But McDonagh, though he often returns to his Irish homeland, sees the world for what it is, with all the laughter and horror built in. Nothing is sugar-coated except the Mintios.

KATE (about Billy's departure): After all the shame he brought on us, staring at cows, and this is how he repays us.
EILEEN: I hope the boat sinks before it ever gets him to America.
KATE: I hope he drowns like his mammy and daddy drowned before him.
EILEEN (pause): Or are we being too harsh on him?

Martin McDonagh himself.