Theatre in Review: The Cripple of Inishmaan (Cort Theatre)

	Daniel Radcliffe. Photo Johan Persson

"Has the egg man been?" "He has, but he had no eggs." This exchange, worthy of Samuel Beckett, makes a fine introduction to the cockeyed world of Martin McDonagh, who creates rocky Irish landscapes filled with unspeakable behavior and unexpected comedy. The dialogue belongs to Eileen and Kate Osbourne, sisters who run a little store on the island of Inishmaan in 1934. As the curtain rises, they are worried about Billy, the young man whom they have raised as their nephew. Cripple Billy, as he is known to the rest of the residents of the island, thanks to his considerable physical deformities, is late coming home from the doctor; then again, he is known to spend an entire afternoon looking at cows. The idea of Billy's being kissed by a girl is raised, then promptly dismissed. Only a blind girl would kiss him, one of them notes. A blind girl or a backward girl, the other adds, by way of correction. Such is the state of tenderness in Inishmaan.

This fastidious need to present the awful truth as accurately as possible is only one of the many quirks that define McDonagh's characters. Billy's "aunts" worry incessantly about his love of reading and his thoughtful ways. "Did you ever see the Virgin Mary go thinking aloud?" one of them asks, dragging theology into the discussion. Helen, the pretty young thing who acts as a scourge to the local men, has her own ideas about religion: "I prefer Pontius Pilate to Jesus," she notes. "Jesus always seemed full of himself." And then there's Johnnypateenmike, a kind of local town crier who sells his "news" for bits of food; Johnnypattenmike cordially hates his mother, a largely bedridden old biddy, and has been trying for years to kill her with the drink, an enterprise in which she is an enthusiastic participant. As they inform their appalled doctor, she takes no whiskey, except for breakfast. And no poteen whatsoever, except on holidays, which are defined as Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And then there's the running story, taking place offstage, of a feud caused by the mysterious murders of a goat and a cat. And don't forget the daughter of Jim Finnegan, whose sluttish ways have made her a local legend; it is thoroughly permissible to say that an unlikely event will happen when Finnegan's daughter joins a nunnery.

McDonagh draws this gallery of grotesques with the finest of hands, playing them for the rudest possible laughter while never sacrificing their humanity. The action of The Cripple of Inishmaan is driven by a true event, the arrival of the filmmaker Robert Flaherty on the nearby island of Inishmore to make the famous documentary Man of Aran. Helen and her brother, Bartley, talk Babbybobby, a widower with a boat, into taking them to Inishmore; Helen is convinced that she can storm Hollywood with her good looks. Billy, feeling caged and desperate, joins them, having persuaded Babbybobby that he is dying of TB.

To everyone's astonishment, Billy is taken up by the film crew and goes to Hollywood, leaving behind his aunts, who fall into mutual decline, and Helen, who is furious that Billy stole her opportunity. Subsequent events include a raucous showing of the completed Man of Aran ("Ah, they're never going to be catching this fecking shark," says the bitter Helen, disrupting the screening once again.) and Billy's surprise return, which is accompanied by a dizzying series of reversals, revelations, and unexpected twists, each of which weds tragedy to laughter.

This is the third time the play has been seen in New York and it is by far the most authoritative distillation of McDonagh's singular vision. Under Michael Grandage's direction, the cast nimbly handles the script's vaudeville-like exchanges while never losing sight of the harsher realities underneath the jokes. In the title role, Daniel Radcliffe pulls off an astonishing physical transformation, complete with a useless shriveled arm and a torturous crabwalking gait. (The actor has said in interviews that he took the decision that Billy is suffering from cerebral palsy.) He gives Billy a real sweetness and longing that doesn't belie his desperate ambition to escape, and when faced with the possibility that his parents killed themselves rather than raise a cripple, his terror at the possibility of never having been loved is heartbreaking.

Radcliffe may be the star on the marquee but he has wisely subsumed himself into a company that performs with stunning assurance. As Billy's Aunt Eileen, Gillian Hanna has a great slow burn, displayed as young Bartley agonizes over which "sweetie" to purchase, repeatedly asking for items that aren't in stock. Ingrid Craigie matches her as her sister Kate, who, in moments of stress, takes to talking to stones. Pat Shortt's Johnnypateenmike is a transparently hilarious opportunist, rolling out his news with a flourish as he eyes the bits of merchandise he is certain it will buy; he plays brilliantly with June Watson as his permanently pickled mother. As Helen, Sarah Greene is a most fetching bully, whether she is indulging her favorite behavior -- breaking eggs on the head of an innocent male -- or explaining that she developed her bellicose manner as a defense against lecherous priests. Naturally, Billy is in love with her. ("She'd kiss a donkey, but not Cripple Billy," someone observes.) Pádraic Delaney's Babbybobby carries a hint of tragedy about him that doesn't prevent him from brutally taking out his rage against Billy. Also fine are Gary Lilburn's doctor, the only person on the island with a sense of propriety, and Conor MacNeill's cheerfully idiotic Bartley.

Grandage has also seen to it that The Cripple of Inishmaan has a production design, courtesy of Christopher Oram, that creates the right landscape of deprivation, beginning with a show curtain offering a sepia-toned picture of the underpopulated island and including the Osbourne sisters' store, a stone building lacking any warmth or conveniences; Babbybobby's boat, marooned on a rocky shore; the bedroom of Johnnypateenmike's mother, a hovel lacking any hint of décor; a fleabag hotel room in Los Angeles; and the screening of Man of Aran, which takes place outdoors with a bedsheet for a screen. Oram's costumes, consisting entirely of utilitarian woolens, feel exactly right. Paule Constable's lighting combines cloudy-day looks with harsh sunlight that burns across the stage like acid. Alex Baranowski's sound design combines his original music with effects that include seagulls and crashing waves.

Among McDonagh's plays, The Cripple of Inishmaan is certainly the funniest, and it is also a near-perfect representation of a certain kind of Irish humor rooted in a vision so bleak that laughter is the only reasonable response. In this play, McDonagh wants to make you laugh, break your heart a second later, and stun you with cruelty a second after that; he manages all three, making a convincing argument that this is the way of the world. Surveying this landscape of gossip and malice, Eileen comments, "It'll all be ending in tears. Tears or death or worse." After a pause, she adds, "Or are we being too harsh?" Not at all, Eileen. Not at all.--David Barbour