Why I’m Performing in The Pillowman in Five Days
Time moves quickly. I think it was only a moment ago that we had months ahead of us to rehearse, and yet that expanse of time has receded as swiftly as waves on the shore. Somehow, I have very quickly reached a point where I have only five days before I will be acting on-stage at Launceston’s Earl Arts Centre, for the first time in fifteen years. I am playing the part of Katurian the writer (originated by David Tennant in the 2003 premiere of the play, and most recently in 2023 by Lily Allen) in Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman, directed by Mitchell Langley for the Launceston Players, which also stars Travis Hennessy as Tupolski, Lauchy Hansen as Ariel, Jesse Apted as Michal, and Renee Bakker, Michael Mason and Eva Cetti in various roles. As the play begins, my character is dragged in for questioning by the police. He writes powerful—but very disturbing—short stories, and it seems that someone is bringing those short stories to life.
Wouldn’t it make sense that he has something to do with it?
It all sounds pretty grim (and in many ways it is), but if you are at all familiar with McDonagh’s writing then you’ll know that he can be relied upon to strike an electrifying balance between horror and comedy. His works include The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001), A Behanding in Spokane (2010) and Hangmen (2015) for the stage, while more recently he has made his name as the Academy Award-winning writer and director of In Bruges (2008), Seven Psychopaths (2012), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) and The Banshees of Inisherin (2022). While The Pillowman is undoubtedly one of the darkest plays I’ve ever come across, it is also one of the funniest.
A year ago, I probably would have considered it unlikely that I would find myself here. In fact, I find it pretty unlikely even now, just days away from opening night. So why did I want to be part of The Pillowman? Aside from the obvious strengths of the team behind the project (who have taught me so much, whilst also giving me the delightful and terrifying challenge of trying to prove my right to share the same stage as them), this is a play that is very close to my heart. In 2008, in my Year 12 Theatre class, my teacher Nicole assigned me Tupolski’s famous railroad tracks monologue as my assessment piece, which I also later performed at a college academic awards night. Ambitious creature that I was, I wouldn’t dare perform something like that without first having its context in the whole work. She lent me a copy of the play—the first time I had seen one of those strange slim paperbacks with no picture on the cover (this one was orange, as is the copy I am learning my lines from now). I went home and read it. I was laughing, I was shocked, and I was moved, all in equal measure. Oh, of course there’s something special about a work of literature that finds you on the cusp of a new phase of life, and most of my favourite books are books that I found (or that found me) that year. But aside from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (which I also discovered just before finishing school, and found myself falling into, and have since found it very hard to clamber back out of), The Pillowman swiftly became my favourite play, and Martin McDonagh my favourite living playwright. There have been a number of times on this blog where I have talked about the challenge of balance, how we prioritise and choose what to spend our precious limited time and our creative resources on. For me, the only thing worse than having the burden of auditioning for The Pillowman, being offered a part in it, and rehearsing and performing it, was the horrifying thought that someone else might get to do it in my place.
And so, here I am.
In my teaching of English, one of the most important concepts that I discuss with students is that of an “invited reading.” What I mean by this is not merely what the author (or even a character) says, but what the audience is supposed to take away as its meaning. Bad things happen in literature, but the existence of evil as a narrative element is not necessarily an endorsement of it, even if it might be tempting and easy to think so. In our inattentive world of click-bait headlines, out-of-context soundbites and addiction to outrage, it can be very easy to mistake a single puzzle piece for the whole picture, and while it happens constantly, it happens at our own peril. This is the very essence of what The Pillowman is asking us to consider: what stories are we allowed to tell? How do we shape the audience’s understanding of what we are trying to say? Can we shape the audience’s understanding of what we are trying to say? Should we be expected to? In the end, is it even fair to say that stories mean anything at all?
In a prescient update relating to the show’s themes, on World Poetry Day last month, PEN International released “War, Censorship, and Persecution,” an international case list for 2023/2024, highlighting the latest challenges for writers in global conflicts and emphasising the need to safeguard freedom of expression, especially in war-torn regions. The report documents 122 cases of writers facing harassment, arrest, violence and death worldwide. This is why the tale of Katurian still matters: because we do not yet live in a world where you can be sure that a story will not cost you your life.
A few days out from opening night, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I was a little scared. There is never a moment where I am not on-stage in the play. Playing Katurian as a return to performance is the theatrical equivalent of “having another go at swimming” by throwing myself into the churning waters of the Atlantic.
But that’s the point, isn’t it? I’m scared. Oh yes, I’m scared. But I have a story that needs telling.
The Launceston Players Production of The Pillowman, directed by Mitchell Langley, is on-stage at the Earl Arts Centre Wednesday 24th April at 7:30pm, Thursday 25th April at 4:30pm, Friday 26th April at 7:30pm, and Saturday 27th April at 2:00pm and 7:30pm. Tickets are still available at Theatre North.
