Violent Laughter in McDonagh's The Lieutenant of Inishmore

If you have a chance to get down to L.A. in the next month, I recommend seeing the Mark Taper Forum’s production of Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2001) www.centertheatregroup.org/ Here’s a summary from the website:

“Padraic (Chris Pine), a hard-boiled terrorist, has been away in Northern Ireland with his busy schedule of torture and assorted nationalist mayhem, but he is lured home to Inishmore by the news that his beloved cat, Wee Thomas, is doing poorly. When Padraic finds out Wee Thomas has been murdered, he initiates a cycle of revenge-killing that threatens everyone in his path, except perhaps the love-struck Mairead (Zoe Perry), a 16-year-old terrorist groupie with a BB gun.”

I enjoyed this play because it is laugh-out-loud funny—a feat that’s pretty difficult to accomplish these days (I remember laughing out loud during one of McDonagh’s other works, In Bruges, as well). Yes, this black comedy involves a mad Irish terrorist (so mad, he was rejected by the I.R.A.) willing to kill his own father for letting his pet cat die, and yes, the gore and twisted moral universe are extreme, but, instead of having a knee-jerk reaction which might deem the work gratuitously violent, I think McDonagh is carefully purposeful. In fact, incorporating such bloody disregard makes the play even funnier, just as much as it makes it “black”; that’s how black comedies work, right? To hold back on the absurdity would make the play less comedic and more black, which might then yield the performance unwatchable (for some, at least) as a dark, depressing work of art.

The Lieutenant of Inishmore also succeeds because of the truth underlying its humor. In other words, we find aspects of the play hilarious because the playwright effectively confronts his audience with realities of situations, cultures, and human nature that we are familiar with and can relate to because we’ve experienced them in our own lives. Many of us probably do not personally know an Irish terrorist or (hopefully) a torturous murderer, but we more likely have come into contact with irrational, short-tempered family members, frustrated, love-sick teenagers, or unfairly accusatory individuals. At the very least, we are aware of the seemingly endless violence taking place in Northern Ireland, which seems strongly attached to its historical identity. McDonagh exposes these truths with witty banter and circumstances that are so ridiculous, they leave us chuckling aloud with amusement.

Like all real comedies, though, disaster and heartbreak lurk just beneath the surface; categorizing this play as a kind of tragicomedy would also be accurate. On one level, we laugh at the horrors McDonagh addresses—the violence, the indifference—because of the extreme and clever way they are presented, but on another level, we are laughing because we recognize what McDonagh speaks of—we know that these horrors exist; the playwright’s twisted humor when exploring these horrors makes us laugh, though, instead of cry. So, after enjoying the performance, I wonder: would this play be as successful as it is—would it have the same impact—if the tone was different, or if it was not comedic? Would McDonagh’s vision of the world— in this case, his observations regarding the endless and senseless violence of terrorism—influence his audience as effectively if it was, let’s say, a straightforward, serious drama? Obviously, we wouldn’t be laughing, but would we be as willing to listen to his take, or as willing to consider the reasons motivating the characters’ words and actions? Or would the majority of viewers/readers shut down because, if seriously contemplated, it’s just all too depressing?

Regardless, the play provoked some significant thought in me (I don’t know if it’s just my personality, which is always trying to find, or at least hope for, some meaning in experience, or if it’s the play itself; probably both): is violence endless in our world? Even if most people really try to give peace a chance, is it inevitable that violence will persist? I hate to ask it, but is hoping for world peace pointless? Should we just laugh, as The Lieutenant of Inishmore and McDonagh do, at the absurdity of it all? Should we just laugh at the fact that, despite what history tells us—that senseless violence pretty much gets us nowhere, and ends badly—certain people and entities still believe in and utilize its force?

Well, even with the overwhelming logic favoring continual violence, I am not ready to give up on peace. And although forms of hate, hostility, injustice, and bloodshed will probably exist to some degree, I think we should all strive for peace, so that it at least outweighs the cruelty, the vehemence, the carnage. As my following words about nature reflect, my faith in beauty and hopeful possibility has to outweigh my doubt in the goodness of humans; otherwise, it’s all just too depressing, and unwatchable.

The wilderness has a mysterious tongue
Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,
So solemn, so serene, that man may be
But for such faith with nature reconciled; (76-9, “Mont Blanc”)


--Shelley