The Pillowman

I love when I ask the Tisch acting students their favorite book as I never really know what I will get.  Even though I give months of advance warning I will ask the question, I still will get that actor who wants me to read a play instead of a book.  It’s a book, folks!  OK, ok, I always still push back but when I realize that it isn’t going to happen, I relent and say ok, what is it…  yes this was a Tisch student favorite – actors for perspective sake, read some books.  I have a whole list on the site with blog posts, you’ll get some great perspective.  And so it goes.  So today's read is The Pillowman by Irishman, Martin McDonagh.  The main character, Katurian, is in a police interrogation room blindfolded being questioned by two police detectives, Tupolski and Ariel.  Katurian, an author of over 400 short stories, is being held with his brother on the death of some people in the city.  It just happens that Katurian’s stories are very similar to the real life happenings of horrific deaths of young people in the city.  Coincidence?  Real?  His stories, which he has read to his younger brother for many years are now coming to life.  Why?  Did his brother, Michal, perform the gruesome acts?  When his brother confesses and implicates Katurian, Katurian wants nothing more than to give up his own life, but wants for his work to live on for generations.  When he confronts Michal on the indictment that he has made to the police about Katurian, Michal admits to it and to the fact that he was abused as a young boy.  Katurian kills his brother as he allegedly killed his parents, by suffocating them with a pillow.  The Pillowman story that Katurian wrote is the idea of a ghost figure who appears to children suggesting that life is horrible and only gets worse, so why not sacrifice your own life?  In the end, like his brother, Katurian is killed by the police detectives, although his stories will seemingly live on as the one detective hides them in the files rather than burns them as he was told to do.  This is a very dark story and opens one’s eye to the thinking that some have on the “glass half empty.”  Clearly there was abuse for Katurian and his brother, kids who never had joy and exposing it as a road to “salvation” for others.  Whenever I read a play I visualize it and get excited to want to direct… ah someday.  Now I want to see it on stage.  Good dark story.