IndexStructureCharactersKaturianMichalArielTupolskiFeaturesLanguageSoundAmbience and styleBiography of the playwrightWriting of the playPast productionsOther worksHistorical, cultural, political and religious contextCriticism of the playThe Pillowman is about a writer, Katurian and his disabled brother, who are tortured and interrogated once series of child murders, based on violent stories that Katurian wrote. The critical moment occurs when Katurian learns of his brother's role in the children's murder and how he felt betrayed by Katurian's stories. The setting is the interrogation room of a police station in an unnamed totalitarian state. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayStructureThe Pillowman has a climatic structure. There are only four characters that you focus on and almost all of the action takes place inside a police station in a linear timeline. While the main action and setting take place over time, there are re-enactments that take place on stage as the main characters tell stories or discuss the past. Act I, Scene 1: Ariel and Tupolski question Katurian in a police room about his affairs. Ariel "tortures" Michal and tells Katurian that Michal has just confessed to killing three children, in association with Katurian, which Katurian denies. Act I, scene 2: Katurian tells the story of his childhood, both the alternate ending he wrote and the actual one. version.Act II Scene 1: Katurian and Michal are together in a cell, Michal reveals that he was not tortured, but worked with Ariel to pretend that he was. Michal then admits to killing the children, claiming that Katurian told him to do so with his stories. Michal also states that the last child was murdered following the story "Little Jesus", which is one of Katurian's most violent tales. Michal tells Katurian that he read "The Writer and the Writer's Brother". He is deeply upset and resentful that Katurian would change the true version of events as he did, instead wishing that Katurian had written a happy ending for the two brothers. Katurian puts Michal to sleep by telling him a story and then suffocates him to save him from execution. He decides to confess to the crimes on the condition that his stories are spared. Act II Scene 2: Katurian tells the others the story of Little Jesus. Act III Scene 1: Katurian writes his confession, including the three child murders and the murders of Michael and his parents. He begs to save his stories from destruction. Katurian is unable to answer questions about the third murder. The little girl is found alive and the investigators realize that Katurian was not actually involved. Katurian is still executed for killing Michal and his parents. Just as Ariel is about to set Katurian's stories on fire, however, Katurian stands up and talks about how he used his last seconds to tell himself a story about how The Pillowman came to Michal when he was young. This story would have ended with Ariel burning the stories, but Katurian was killed before it could finish. In reality, Ariel decides to save the stories. CharactersKaturianKaturian is a writer who takes care of his disabled brother Michal. As a child, Katurian excelled and wrote cheerful stories, until he began hearing strange sounds at night. His parents told him that for years they had pretended to torture a child to make him a better writer as part of an experiment. Katurian finally broke down the door, found his brother who was being tortured by their parents and then ends upsuffocate their parents. Katurian subsequently cares for his brother but also writes extraordinarily violent and gruesome stories about children. Katurian cannot understand his brother's crimes, so he kills him himself and confesses to the murders in an attempt to preserve his stories. MichalMichal is Katurian's brother. He is disabled and suffers mentally as a result of the abuse he suffered as a child. Michal is responsible for the children's murders and bases them on Katurian's stories, believing that his brother told him to do so. Michal admires Katurian and even idolizes him, but is also angry at him for writing a story about the two of them in which Michal died, and neither of them ends up happy. ArielAriel is a detective who interrogates Katurian and holds Michal. Ariel is violent and much more prone to physical violence than Tupolski and has a vendetta against people who commit crimes against children as he suffered trauma as a child at the hands of his father, who, like Katurian, he ended up suffocating. He is a detective in a totalitarian state and has a significant amount of power and control over Katurian and Michal. However, not much is said about the state they live in, so it is unknown what his status would be in the general world of the play. Ariel claims to be a "bad cop" at first and the two play nice with each other. However, despite his attitude towards violence, he ends up being the one who feels the most compassion for Katurian and what he has endured. Tupolski Tupolski is the lead detective against Katurian and plays the "good cop" between him and Ariel. Tupolski is cold and doesn't seem to care what happens to Katurian or Michal. He sees himself as detached from the world and the people he wanted to save. Like Ariel, Tupolski is also a detective and holds a significant amount of power and high status over Katurian and Michal, but his overall status is unknown. It is assumed that, being in the totalitarian state they are in, both he and Ariel have a fair amount of power over those being investigated/convicted and pedestrians. Features Language The language in The Pillowman is, on the surface, simple. All the characters speak in short sentences and often repeat: “Katrina: I don't cut things. I just deleted it. ARIEL: Oh, you don't cut things. Just clean it. Despite the seemingly simple syntactic structure, each character is full of complex motivations and feelings. None of the characters use excessive or flowery language, choosing to use the word "fuck" whenever possible, especially Ariel and Tupolski. Sound I did not notice any particular specific sounds noted within the play, however, I know that two significant productions were scored. All transitions are simple and many occur while the narration happens on stage. A good pair potentially raises the stakes of violent actions that take place, but could also deter well-crafted language if not executed correctly. Setting and Style The Pillowman is set in an interrogation room of an unnamed police state. The world is quite dark and bleak given the overall content of the work. Playwright Biography Martin McDonagh is a British and Irish playwright, screenwriter and director, born and raised in London to Irish parents. He has often been described as one of Ireland's most important living playwrights. He was born in Camberwell, London, to Irish parents who later returned to Galway, leaving McDonagh and his brother to grow up in London, which may be part of his assessment of dysfunctional families. McDonagh rewrote the fairy tales, which appear to have had a significant influence on his work. Despite having published eight plays, he is not all that interested in theater, having declaredthat he prefers to work in cinema and has a “respect for the entire history of cinema and a slight lack of respect for theatre” probably due to its lower accessibility. Writing the Play Despite having several productions produced in multiple non-English speaking countries, there appear to be no printed translations of The Pillowman available. An early version of the play received its first public reading at the Finborough Theater in London in 1995. However, this version is not available. Past Productions The Pillowman has had moderate success since it was released in 2003. It premiered on 13 November 2003 at the Royal National Theatre. Directed by John Crowley, this production featured famous actors, David Tennant as Katurian, Jim Broadbent as Tupolski, Nigel Lindsay as Ariel and Adam Godley as Michal. After its success, it went to Broadway in 2005 and then to the Steppenwolf Theater from 2006 to 2009. The Pillowman was also produced in Paris, Lithuania, Iran, Ireland, Seoul, Hong Kong, Argentina, Australia, Turkey and Italy. The range of successes he has achieved in a relatively short period of time speaks volumes about the themes of the work and how it adapts to many cultures. I think a lot of the range of interpretations comes from the nature of the subject matter, from its macabre nature and the trauma the characters have endured, to the dark story material Katurian writes about and how they parallel themes of old. fairy tales. Most past productions have chosen to set it in a contemporary world or to set it in a version of what I would consider “yesterday,” not precisely now but sometime in our past. Aside from that, there doesn't seem to have been much artistic freedom in setting or style in past productions. Other Works McDonagh's first six works are separated into two trilogies. The first trilogy, The Leenane Trilogy, is set in Leenane and includes The Beauty Queen Of Leenane (1996), A Skull In Connemara (1997) and The Lonesome West (1997), all set in Leenane. The Beauty Queen Of Leenane is about a dysfunctional relationship between a spinster and an overbearing mother. A Skull In Connemara is about a man who digs up skeletons from overcrowded cemeteries and finds the skeleton of the wife he was once accused of murdering. And The Lonesome West features two brothers arguing over their father's seemingly accidental death. The second trilogy, The Aran Islands Trilogy, includes The Cripple Of Inishman (1996), The Lieutenant Of Inishmore (2001) and The Banshee Of Inisheer. The Cripple Of Inishman is about a disabled teenager trying to make his way in a fictional documentary. The Lieutenant Of Inishmore is a dark comedy about a leader of a splinter group of the Irish National Liberation Army who discovers that his best friend, who is a cat, has died. The Banshee Of Inisheer was never produced or released. Both trilogies precede The Pillowman in McDonagh's career. However, given the date of the first version of The Pillowman, it is likely that he was working on them in some way simultaneously. His first trilogy notably shares many themes, structures, and types of relationships with The Pillowman. The most obvious is the concept of death and a gruesome end. But it also includes the family dysfunction that Katurian and Michal have with the mother and daughter in The Beauty of Leenane, as well as the two brothers, who may or may not have intentionally killed their father in The Lonesome West. After The Pillowman, McDonagh released two more comedies: A Behanding In Spokane (2010) and Hangmen (2015). His last two plays do not seem to share many themes with his previous works. Historical, cultural, political and religious context.