The Good, the Bad, and the Ugliness of "The Cripple of Inishmaan"

Martin McDonagh’s “The Cripple of Inishmaan” presented at Kalamazoo College’s Festival Playhouse over this past weekend, was clever yet disappointing. Directed by Kevin Dodd, a theater arts educator at both Kalamazoo College and Western Michigan University, this black comedy takes place on the sheltered island off the coast of Ireland during the early 1930’s. It’s characters, script, and humor is delightful, yet its high attempts to be witty took this play one step too far, for far too long.

The scenery was ideal. Plaid skirts, vests, aprons, suspenders, tights, slacks and heavy-heeled shoes all of neutral browns, oranges and reds provided a perfect tone for this antique Irish setting. Wooden barrels, shelved canned foods, lanterns, and food crates also added an effective old fashion touch.

The characters of this play were also captured extremely well. “Cripple Billy”, played by senior Michael Chodos, is first introduced through his gossiping aunts Kate, played by senior Laura Fox, and Eileen, played by first-year Sierra Moore. Eventually he shuffled in with a crippled arm, dragging his left foot. Chodos magnificently conveyed Billy to the point where viewers immediately felt sympathy for Billy with his hunched shoulders, sullen face expressions and slow movements. Johnny Patten, played by second-year Sam Bertken, was a nosy and bitter old man who always seemed up-to-date on the latest news of the island and offered daily “pieces of news” to chat about. Helen, played by first-year Rudi Goddard, was one of the stronger and buoyant characters who seemed a natural flirt. All of these personalities and even other minor personalities always remained true to their character, which was very refreshing to watch.

The script was unique and authentic. Words such as “arse” and “feckin” reined consistent of the Irish language as well as stirred good laughs from the audience. The characters’ high held value of their country was also portrayed through language: “Ireland mustn’t be a bad place if sharks want to be comin’ to Ireland”. The dialect, however, was not so successful in this particular production. The Irish accent was barely mastered by the majority of the actors. Instead of rolling the words naturally off their tongue, their speech sounded nasally and forced, making me question if we were still in Ireland or if we went traveling to a mix of some other European countries. Unfortunately, this began taking away from the authenticity of the McDonagh’s script as well as the characters.

The successful integration of harmless humor is really what kept the play upbeat through its drudgingly long duration. Everything from Billy’s fascination with cows and his overly frantic aunts, to Johnny trying to kill his Mammy with alcohol and Kate talking to stones made the Inishmaan community seem all the more blameless and fruitful.

However, not everything in this play was so humorous. The style of dialogue presented alternated between two extremes: light-hearted and heart breaking. The two together played on the emotions of audience members in a frustrating way. Things that were meant to be funny such as playing jokes on humble “Cripple Billy” and talk of stomping on a cat until its dead were demoralizing. McDonagh definitely took the black humor too far, especially when the audience finds out that Billy has believed all his life that he is cripple because his father punched his mother’s womb while she was pregnant with Billy, which is why is was born with a handicap.

Additionally, the play was a few hours too long with its exhausted conversations, discomforted silences and awkward transitions. This play was also often stretching for entertainment. For example, when Helen was cracking eggs over another character’s head, it became clear that the actors where anticipating a laugh that never actually came. The unrealistic action such as a few slow motion punches reminded me that I was in fact in an auditorium. All of these small technical faults added up fast and quickly overshadowed the tremendous character portrayals and detailed aesthetics. The longer I watched, the more I had to struggle to pay attention. I would have much rather watched cows in a field with Billy than watch this play again.