The Cripple of Inishmaan: Theater Review
8 / 10
With typically spry wit and irreverent ethnographic insight,Martin McDonagh's grubby jewel of a play uses the shooting of Flaherty's seminal non-fiction film as the spark for a pitch-black comedy about Irishness. The triptych portrait of Daniel Radcliffe on the Playbill cover makes no mistake about the marquee draw, and the former Harry Potter star has never been better, more than measuring up in this flawless ensemble. But to quote Hamlet, 'the play's the thing' in Michael Grandage's cracking production, which makes an entertainingly boozy brew of humor both sweet and savage, melancholy sentimentality, lacerating sorrow and wicked cruelty.
