Thoughts about The Pillowman (Part II)

Hey all:

So I have your midterms next to me and I will begin grading them shortly. Before I do, though, I do want to say that I have been impressed by the conversations that we have been having in class so far. I realize that the material that we have had so far has not been easy--and I make no apologies for this. As I stated on my syllabus, I expect us all to be intellectuals and to work through material that we may not like, may find tough, and that may find confusing. The goal of the first part of the semester was to read material that will make us think and see our post war(s) world a little bit differently. I know that I have a new understanding after listening to your comments about these texts, after seeing Blackwatch on stage, after reading your posts (so thank you). And I hope you do as well.

The second part of the semester, I hope, will be just as challenging as well as rewarding. Keep up the good work and keep fighting through these texts and bring your energy and intelligence to your posts as well as our discussions.

But now onto THE PILLOWMAN. Reading through the comments on various listserves about the play, a few words keep popping up--"brilliant" and "frightening." Well, after leaving the exam on Wednesday and hopping onto the G train to head home, I completely missed my stop because I was so wrapped up in this play. So, yeah, I agree--I think it is brilliant and frightening at the same time. But, it is also a play in which "the meaning" is just out of reach and no matter how much I stretch, it stays a fingertip away. You might find the same thing when you read. So what I will try to do a few times before our class meeting is to mention some large themes/ideas that I see and hopefully raise some interesting questions that could help you think with this material.

THE WORLD OF STORIES
Martin McDonagh is a playwright who, first and foremost, is a storyteller. He's the type of guy that you would picture in a small outoftheway pub in Ireland, sitting before a half drunk glass of Guiness and a warm peat fire, who suddenly clears his throat and two hours later after telling a fantastical story that seemed to just dance off his tongue, clears his throat again and stares at his beer never to say another word. A guy who contains many histories inside him and, given the right moment, will tell you things that you don't want to know but can't ever imagine getting up and just walking away. STORIES. The Pillowman, first and foremost, is a play that contemplates the art and nature of stories.

What does a good story do? A story contains a self-contained world that envelopes the reader/listener in a way that while s/he may feel the chair underneath her/him, there is a disconnect with the ordinary world and s/he enters completely and wholeheartedly into the world that is being created. It happens occasionally. The theater is a good place--the lights go down and the actors are mimicking opening letters (ala Blackwatch) and you know they are just actors but suddenly that doesn't matter and you are brought into the world of the fighters in Iraq. Or, for me for example, when I watched Children of Men and I forgot completely that there was anyone in the theater. Or...you get my meaning.

But a good story is not just about what it does to you in the moment of the telling. This is entertainment. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but a story must reach beyond the world it created and enter into our world. And that is what I think McDonagh does so well. I agree with Tupolski that all the stories within The Pillowman are "pointers" (17) and that they are trying to tell us something. But what are they pointing to?

Let's take the first story, "The Three Gibbet Crossroads" (17-18) where a man wakes up in a gibbet, knows he did something wrong, but doesn't know what. His crime is on a placard above the cage and so he cannot see what he did wrong. People pass by and everyone who sees him is disgusted by him (two other prisoners--a rapist and a murderer are forgiven by the passerbys) and eventually one even kills the man. Before he dies, the man wants to know if he will go to hell but he is just laughed at as his life drains from him.

Katurain says that this story is a great story because it is a puzzle without a solution.

Okay, so what do we do with this? Well, one, we look at the story aesthetically and, yeah, it's a good story. It gave me a few chills and will probably keep me up tonight. But on another level, I do think it's pointing to something as well. But what? Well, why is this guy in prison in the first place---because he did something horrible and is punished for it. But do we know this for sure? We, the audience, don't know his crime--or if he did anything at all. And the people--the nuns, the highway man--are disgusted by what the sign says. But did they see him do the crime (whatever crime it is)? No. All we know is that there is some power that was able to arrest, try and convict the man without any say on his part. He had no power of attorney, he had no defense, hell, he doesn't even know what he did. But as his life is spilling from him, he is convinced that he did something wrong and wonders about his eternal soul.........this sounds to me as a metaphor for a prison system in a State where people have no rights. A prison system where people are arrested without formal charges and are not given a chance to defend themselves. They are outside the law and therefore are not even able to get sympathy from passerbys. They are convicted and therefore seen as ultimate danger to the State and its subjects and therefore they have to be locked up and sent away (in this case forever).

Does this sound like anything we know? Is this story, a puzzle with no solution, actually pointing to our current post 9/11 world where governments have places outside of the law where, for the safety of the State's subjects, they are outside of all normal laws and legal processes? A place like Guantanamo Bay perhaps?

Is this play really a frank and brutal story about a world where governments are sanctioned to torture in order to protect? A play about what happens when laws are pushed aside for "national security?"

Maybe, maybe not, but as you read this play, think about what all of these stories point to? Who are the defenseless children in these stories? What do the two brothers represent? How is torture used in this story?

Anyway, that's probably too much for one sitting. I'll stop here. But I'll try to get some more ideas out here on my blog tomorrow.......