THEATER REVIEW by Danielle Kurtzleben
Everyone was excited for the opening of Frank Theater’s The Pillowman. The Star Tribune on Friday ran an article on lead actor Jim Lichtseidl: “Funnyman Jim Lichtseidl exercises his dark side with a meaty role,” read the subheader. The Pioneer Press also ran an interview with Lichtseidl and Luverne Seifert, another Pillowman star: “It’s almost guaranteed that sparks will fly,” the PiPress proclaimed. Expectations were high, and the show succeeds…sort of. Frank’s production of The Pillowman is good, but too overwrought to be much more.
Martin McDonagh’s The Pillowman focuses on Katurian (Lichtseidl), a writer of grisly tales in which children are tortured and killed. When a number of child murders resembling his stories take place, Katurian is detained for questioning by the totalitarian state in which he lives. He is interrogated by detectives Ariel (Chris Carlson) and Tupolski (Seifert), who have also detained Katurian’s mentally disabled brother, Michal (Grant Richey), as a way of baiting Katurian into confessing.
Katurian is on stage for the entire play, but is ironically forced into the background. Pillowman is about artistic responsibility, and Katurian and his art seem to be present only to generate a reaction from Tupolski, Ariel, and Michal. This is not to say that Lichtseidl disappoints; to the contrary, Lichtseidl gives Katurian what depth he can, and his big-brother relationship with Michal is sweet and sincere. But the plot itself gives Lichtseidl little to work with, and as a result he is underused. The role of Katurian proves that serious does not equal “meaty.” In this case, it just means the eye of the storm.
Fortunately, the rest of the storm is entertaining. Seifert and Carlson are wonderful as the good-cop/bad-cop team of Ariel and Tupolski. Carlson’s Ariel is high-strung and constantly enraged; Seifert’s Tupolski is docile but menacing — together they are mean and unfair and completely engrossing. Seifert is so deliciously nasty that you can’t help but laugh. Grant Richey also succeeds in the role of Michal, uttering even the most disturbing of lines with innocence and vulnerability.
Pillowman is heavy — it discusses child torture, for God’s sake. And furthermore, it’s about the importance of Art with a capital A. Sometimes it sounds more like a debate in a college literature course than a play. One can’t expect to feel uplifted, but Frank’s production can feel suffocating. There are periods of interrogation so uniformly intense that they drag and grow dull. Nearly every surface is a greenish, corroded metal. The compartment in which Katurian’s stories are acted out hulks over the small Dowling Studio stage, taking up considerable space but only used for about 20 minutes total. The between-scene music is loud and throbbing. Taken separately, these elements could be considered stylized and — especially in the case of the corroded set — kind of cool-looking. But taken together with McDonagh’s script (itself a bit heavy-handed) the whole thing screams “DISTURBING!” and doesn’t really let you think otherwise. It’s hard to see this genre-busting play as anything more than a psychological thriller in this environment, which is a shame. While entertaining, Frank’s Pillowman could use a lighter touch to create some sort of balance, or even a bit of breathing room.
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