The Pillowman

The Pillowman
Written by	Martin McDonagh
Characters	Katurian Tupolski Ariel Michal
Date of premiere	November 13, 2003
Place of premiere	Royal National Theatre, London
Original language	English
Genre	Black comedy
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The Pillowman is a 2003 play by Martin McDonagh. Martin McDonagh (born 26 March 1970 is a contemporary Irish playwright and Film director. Katurian (full name Katurian Katurian Katurian) is a fictitious character taken from The Pillowman, a play written by Martin McDonagh. The Royal National Theatre, located on the South Bank in the London Borough of Lambeth, England. Black comedy, also known as black humor or dark comedy, is a sub-genre of Comedy and Satire where topics and events that are usually regarded A play, or stageplay, is a form of Literature written by a Playwright, almost always consisting of Dialogue between Fictional characters Martin McDonagh (born 26 March 1970 is a contemporary Irish playwright and Film director. An especially dark black comedy, it tells the tale of Katurian, a fiction writer living in a police state who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories, and their similarities to a number of bizarre child murders occurring in his town. Black comedy, also known as black humor or dark comedy, is a sub-genre of Comedy and Satire where topics and events that are usually regarded Katurian (full name Katurian Katurian Katurian) is a fictitious character taken from The Pillowman, a play written by Martin McDonagh. Fiction is the telling of stories which are not real More specifically fiction is an imaginative form of Narrative, one of the four basic Rhetorical modes. A writer is anyone who creates a written work although the word usually designates those who write creatively or professionally as well as those who have written in many different forms The term police state describes a State in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social economic and political The short story is a literary genre of Fictional Prose Narrative that tends to be more concise and to the point than longer works of fiction such The play received the 2004 Olivier Award for Best New Play, the 2004-5 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best New Foreign Play, and two Tony Awards for production. The Laurence Olivier Award is regarded as the most prestigious award in British theatre and is presented in recognition of artistic achievement in London theatre The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of twenty-two Drama Critics from daily Newspapers, Magazines and Wire services The Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Awards, recognize achievement in live American Theatre and are presented It was nominated for the 2004 Evening Standard Award for Best New Play. The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, established in 1955 are presented annually for outstanding achievements in London Theatre.

1 Plot Introduction
2 Characters
3 Plot
4 Katurian's Stories
5 Allusions
6 Production History and Awards
7 External links

Plot Introduction

Katurian, a writer of grisly short stories often depicting violence against children, has been arrested by two detectives, Ariel and Tupolski, because some of his stories resemble recent child murders. On learning that his brother Michal has confessed to the murders and implicated Katurian, he resigns himself to his execution but attempts to save his stories from destruction. The play includes both narrations and reenactments of several of Katurian's stories, most notably the autobiographical "The Writer and the Writer's Brother," which tells how Katurian developed his disturbed imagination by hearing the sounds of Michal being tortured by their parents.

Characters

Katurian A writer of gruesome short stories often involving children. Katurian (full name Katurian Katurian Katurian) is a fictitious character taken from The Pillowman, a play written by Martin McDonagh. His disturbed imagination was the result of having heard his older brother being abused when they were younger. Consequently he killed his parents and looked after his brother. He is shocked by his arrest and totally oblivious to what his brother has done.

Tupolski The lead detective and the "good cop" in the interrogation. Cold and uncaring, he sees himself as detached from the people he aims to save, shocking his younger partner Ariel.

Ariel A brutal and violent detective who has a vendetta against anyone who commits crimes against children because of abuse in his own past. He ends up being more sympathetic towards Katurian and his stories than Tupolski.

Michal Katurian's brother, who is "slow to get things" following his years of abuse at the hands of his parents. In awe of his brother and fixated by the stories, he genuinely cannot see what he has done wrong.

Plot

Act 1

Scene 1: Ariel and Tupolski interrogate Katurian in a police room. At first Katurian does not know why he is being questioned, and thinks he is under suspicion of conveying political messages against the totalitarian dictatorship through his stories. The three discuss Katurian's grisly stories involving children. Ariel leaves the room, and soon after Michal is heard screaming in the next room. Ariel returns, his hand bloodied from apparently torturing Michal, and tells Katurian that Michal has just confessed to killing three children, in association with Katurian. The first two children were murdered according to the patterns of the stories "The Little Apple Men" and "The Tale of the Town on the River. " Katurian denies the allegations, stating that although his stories are gruesome it is the job of a storyteller to tell a story.

Scene 2: Katurian, along with the mother and father, acts out the autobiographical story "The Writer and the Writer's Brother. " Katurian was raised by loving parents, who encouraged him to write, and for many years he wrote very happy stories. However, at nights he began to hear sounds of torture from the next room, and as a result he began to write more disturbing stories. One night, a note is slipped under the door, claiming that Katurian's brother has been tortured nightly for seven years as part of an artistic experiment to get Katurian to become a great writer. Katurian breaks down the door, only to find his parents, who were playing a trick on him, just pretending to be torturing a child. However, when Katurian returns years later, he discovers his brother's dead body hidden under the mattress, clutching the manuscript of a beautiful story, better than any of Katurian's, which Katurian burns. Katurian then interrupts his narrative to say that this ending was fabricated when he wrote the story: actually when Katurian broke down the door, he found Michal still alive. Katurian then smothered his parents with a pillow.

Act 2

Scene 1: Katurian and Michal are together in a cell, Katurian just having been tortured. Michal reveals that he had not been tortured, but rather cooperated entirely with Ariel, even screaming when Ariel asked him to. Michal admits to having killed the children, claiming that Katurian told him to do it by telling his stories. Michal also admits that the third child was murdered following the story "The Little Jesus," one of Katurian's most violent tales. Michal tells Katurian that he had read the written version of of "The Writer and the Writer's Brother," and resented the alterations from the real version, wishing instead that Katurian had written a happy ending for the two brothers. Katurian lulls Michal to sleep by telling him the story "The Little Green Pig," then smothers him to save him the pain of the execution. Katurian calls to the detectives, announcing his intention to confess to the crimes on the condition that his stories be spared.

Scene 2: Katurian and others act out the story of "The Little Jesus. "

Act 3

Scene 1: Katurian, in the interrogation room with Ariel and Tupolski, is writing his confession, recounting the three child murders as well as the murders of Michal and his parents. Ariel explains his hatred for child-murders as he is preparing to torture Katurian with an electric battery. Katurian guesses that Ariel's hatred arises from a problem childhood, and Tupolski confirms that Ariel was raped by his father, whom he later murdered (by smothering). Tupolski prevents Ariel from torturing Katurian in order to question him. Katurian is unable to answer to whether the third child victim was still alive when she was buried, leading the detectives to consider that she may still be alive. While Ariel runs out to find the girl, Tupolski tells Katurian his own story about a deaf boy saved from being hit by a train because of the unseen efforts of a Chinese wise man in a tower; Tupolski envisions himself as the wise man, protecting the innocent without getting personally involved with them. Ariel then returns with the girl, who was found quite alive, having been cast by Michal not in "The Little Jesus" but in the benign tale "The Little Green Pig. " The detectives question Katurian and discover that he is actually ignorant of the details of the child murders, because he was not involved. The detectives execute Katurian for murdering Michal and his parents, but also decide to burn the stories because Katurian lied in his confession. Just as Ariel is about to torch the papers, however, the dead Katurian stands up and tells how he used his last seconds to tell himself a story about how the Pillowman came to Michal when he was young. Michal decides not to kill himself, and to suffer years of torture, so that Katurian can write his stories. This story was going to end with Ariel burning the stories, but Katurian was shot before he could finish, and as a result Ariel decides to save the stories.

Katurian's Stories

The Little Apple Men

Told briefly in I. i, and reenacted in the first child murder. A young girl, whose father mistreats her, carves a set of little men out of apples. She gives them to her father, telling him to save them rather than eat them. He scoffs at her, and eats several. The men have razor blades inside, which kill the father. In a twist ending, however, at night the remaining apple men accuse the girl of killing their brothers, and they jump down her throat to kill her.

The Three Gibbet Crossroads

A Kafkaesque tale told in I. " Kafkaesque " is an Auctorial descriptive which is used to describe concepts situations and ideas which are reminiscent of the literary work of Prague writer i. A man wakes up in an iron gibbet, aware that he has committed the crime he is being punished for, but unaware what the crime was. He sees two other gibbets, one marked "Murderer" and the other marked "Rapist. " Several people come by who have sympathy for the murderer and the rapist, but only disgust for the first man when they read the sign declaring his crime. The man is shot by a highwayman, still unable to determine what crime he could have committed that would be worse than murder or rape.

The Tale of the Town on the River

Told in I. i, and reenacted in the second murder. A young boy, mistreated by his parents, offers a strange dark rider a piece of his meal. Touched, the rider presents him a gift: he chops off the child's toes. The conclusion of the story relates that the rider was the Pied Piper on his way to Hamelin to take away the children. The Pied Piper of Hamelin is a legend about the abduction of many children from the town of Hamelin ( Hameln) Germany. Since the boy is now crippled, he cannot keep up with the other children, and is therefore the only child in the town to survive.

Told in II. i. The Pillowman is a being made out of pillows who visits people on the verge of suicide because of the tortured lives they have lead. The Pillowman travels back to the person's childhood and convinces them to commit suicide, thereby avoiding a life of suffering. This task saddens the Pillowman, however, and he decides to visit his own younger self, who readily commits suicide. This relieves the Pillowman's sadness, but also causes all the children he had "saved" to live out their miserable lives and eventually die alone.

The Little Green Pig

Told in II. i. Katurian's most juvenile story, but also the only one devoid of violence. A green pig, who enjoys his peculiar coloring, is mocked by the other pigs. The farmers use a special permanent paint to make the pig pink just like all the others. The pig prays to God to keep his peculiarity, and can't understand why God ignored his prayers. Soon after, however, a magic green rain falls that makes all the other pigs green, and since the little pig retains his pink color, he is once again "a little bit peculiar" (66).

The Little Jesus

Reenacted in II. ii, and mistakenly thought to be the source for the third murder. A young girl believes that she is the second coming of Jesus, and goes about blessing unsavory characters, to the dismay of her parents and the annoyance of others. Jesus of Nazareth (7–2 BC / BCE —26–36 AD / CE) When her parents are killed in a horrific accident, she is sent to live with abusive foster parents. Annoyed with her pretensions of divinity, the foster parents complete her performance of Jesus' life by torturing her, crucifying her, and burying her alive so that she might rise again in three days, although she never does.

Allusions

Katurian's situation in the interrogation room, along with his name, alludes to Josef K of Franz Kafka's novel The Trial. The Trial ( Der Process) is a novel by "The Three Gibbet Crossroad" is also inspired by Kafka's short stories, with Katurian referring to it as "something-esque," a play on the term "Kafkaesque. " Kafkaesque " is an Auctorial descriptive which is used to describe concepts situations and ideas which are reminiscent of the literary work of Prague writer "

Production History and Awards

The play had its world premiere on November 13, 2003 at the Royal National Theatre, directed by John Crowley. Events 1002 - English king Ethelred orders the killing of all Danes in England, known today as the St Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. The Royal National Theatre, located on the South Bank in the London Borough of Lambeth, England. John Crowley (born 1969 is an Irish BAFTA -winning television director theatre and Film director who has received critical acclaim in both mediums The original production starred:

It received the 2004 Olivier Award for Best New Play and was nominated for the Evening Standard Award for Best New Play. Katurian (full name Katurian Katurian Katurian) is a fictitious character taken from The Pillowman, a play written by Martin McDonagh. David Tennant (born David John McDonald; 18 April 1971 is a Scottish Actor. James "Jim" Broadbent (born 24 May 1949 is an English Academy Award -winning theatre film and television Actor. Nigel Lindsay left the City in the late 1980s to train as an actor at the Webber Douglas Academy. Adam Godley (born 22 July 1964 is a British actor Biography Godley was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England. "MMIV" redirects here For the Modest Mouse album see " Baron von Bullshit Rides Again " The Laurence Olivier Award is regarded as the most prestigious award in British theatre and is presented in recognition of artistic achievement in London theatre The Evening Standard Theatre Awards, established in 1955 are presented annually for outstanding achievements in London Theatre.

The Pillowman opened on Broadway on April 10, 2005 at the Booth Theatre. Broadway theater, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 39 large professional theaters with 500 seats or more located Events 879 - Louis III becomes King of the Western Franks. 1407 - the lama Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Booth Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 222 West 45th Street ( George Abbott Way) in midtown- Manhattan, New York City The cast consisted of:

Katurian - Billy Crudup
Tupolski - Jeff Goldblum
Ariel - Željko Ivanek
Michal - Michael Stuhlbarg

The play concluded its Broadway run on September 18, 2005. Katurian (full name Katurian Katurian Katurian) is a fictitious character taken from The Pillowman, a play written by Martin McDonagh. William Gaither “Billy” Crudup (ˈkruːdəp born July 8, 1968) is an American Tony Award -winning Actor of Film and Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum (born October 22, 1952) is an Academy Award -nominated American actor Željko Ivanek ( born August 15, 1957) is an Emmy Award -winning American Television, Film Events 96 - Nerva is proclaimed Roman Emperor after Domitian is assassinated Year 2005 ( MMV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

The production won:

The New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play (Foreign)
2 Tony Awards:
- Best Lighting of a play (Brian MacDevitt)
- Best Scenic Design of a Play (Scott Pask)
2 Drama Desk Awards:
- Outstanding Featured Actor, (Michael Stuhlbarg)
- Outstanding Sound Design, (Paul Arditti)
The Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play, (Jeff Goldblum). The New York Drama Critics' Circle is made up of twenty-two Drama Critics from daily Newspapers, Magazines and Wire services The Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Awards, recognize achievement in live American Theatre and are presented Scott Pask is an American Tony Award winning scenic designer born in Yuma Arizona, well known for his work on Broadway for Urinetown The Drama Desk Award, created in 1955, is an award which recognizes shows produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-off-Broadway, and The Outer Critics Circle Awards are presented annually for theatrical achievements both on and Off-Broadway and were begun during the 1949-1950 theater season Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum (born October 22, 1952) is an Academy Award -nominated American actor

External links

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