The Lieutenant of Inishmore: Losing My Mind

I suppose I'm not giving away any major secrets when I write that more than one brain gets blown out its skull in Martin McDonagh's lighthearted romantic romp, The Lieutenant of Inishmore. After all, what comedy about terrorist splinter groups would be complete without seeing blood splattered on the walls and lifeless bodies piling up in someone's living room? See, this is more than just a tender love story about a young girl coming of age. It's the most fun you'll ever have watching a group of insanely violent dunderheads displaying a total disregard for human life.

 

 

But most of all it's about people who love their cats. I mean they really love their cats.

 

 

And they say "feck" a lot. They say "feck" an awful, awful lot.

 

 

Set in 1993 on the island of Inishmore in Ireland's County Galway, we first meet our romantic hero, Padriac (David Wilmot), as he's torturing a drug dealer (Jeff Binder) by hanging him upside-down from a rope and threatening to cut off his nipple. (There's already been a bit of toenail removal.) Padriac, it seems, has his own way of fighting for a free Ireland. As his own father (Peter Gerety) puts it, "The IRA wouldn't let him in because he was too mad and he never forgave 'em for that."

 

 

But before you start thinking that Padriac is a heartless brute, remember that he truly loves his Wee Thomas. I'm referring, of course, to his symbolically named black cat. As the play opens it seems that Wee Thomas has gone limp. Padriac had left him home in dad's care, but now it looks like his wimpy neighbor, Davey (Domhall Gleeson), may have killed the poor thing in a freak bicycle accident. After seeing graphic visual proof that the cat is indeed dead, and knowing that Padriac will go berserk when he sees the kitty carcass, the two frightened men devise a scheme involving another cat and a bottle of black shoe polish. (Wasn't this an episode of I Love Lucy?)

 

 

On his way home after five years of killing and torturing, Padriac meets our ingénue, Mairead (Alison Pill). She's the girl next door who has blossomed into a 15-year-old tomboy who has trained herself to shoot so accurately that she can blind a cow from 60 yards. She does this frequently, in fact, in protest against… I'm not exactly sure whom, but they're bad people who own cows.

 

 

Mairead has a cute little crush on Padriac, of course, and dreams of the two of them forming their own splinter group where side by side they can blow the feckin' bastards straight to hell, but our hero is more concerned with the health of his Wee Thomas.

 

 

Will Padriac notice the feline dye job? Will Mairead get her man to notice her? And what about the three terrorists (Andrew Connolly, Dashiell Eaves and Brian D'Arcy James) who have splintered off from a splinter group and have busted in determined to execute our cat lovin' lad?

 

 

If I haven't made it clear, there's a heck of a lot of graphic violence in The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Describing some of the bloody acts in detail may take a bit of the... ah… "fun"… out of your evening, so let's just say it goes just a tad beyond your basic shooting. And yet the play is consistently, often uproariously, funny. The brilliance of McDonagh's script and Wilson Milam's direction is their ability to let the two co-exist in a play that effectively blows the guts out of the cowardliness of those who commit violent acts in defense of what they believe is a righteous cause.

 

 

Without giving anything away, let's just say that Scott Pask's set, Theresa Squire's costumes, Michael Chybowski's lights and Obadiah Eaves' sound do a splendid job of establishing warm, quaint surroundings which can suddenly explode with harsh and realistic brutality.

 

 

The acting ensemble perfectly plays the piece with the utmost sincerity, embodying the dangerous combination of fierce patriotism, cold indifference to human suffering and unbelievable stupidity. Alison Pill is really playing a coming of age romance. David Wilmot is really playing heroic adventure. The broad antics of the thin and helpless Gleeson and the stocky, controlling Gerety come off as a demented soul's interpretation of Laurel and Hardy. The trio of Connolly, Eaves and D'Arcy James can amuse with informed discussions on Karl Marx and Oliver Cromwell, then fall for the oldest trick in terrorist handbook. (Is there a terrorist handbook? I'm not sure.)

 

 

And Jeff Binder? Give the guy a hand just for the ability to intelligently play a full scene while hanging upside down. Do they teach that at AAMDA?

 

 

Photos by Monique Carboni: Top: Peter Gerety and Domhall Gleeson

Center: Jeff Binder and David Wilmot

Bottom: David Wilmot and Alison Pill