The Cripple of Inishmaan review: Like watching Pulp Fiction without the brain-splattering gunshot

Martin McDonagh's dark comedy about an intolerant island community receives a tame production. Photo: Pat Redmond 

Gaiety Theatre, Dublin

Jan 29-Mar 9

★ ★ ★

It couldn’t be said that Man of Aran, a 1934 documentary film about island life off the western coast of Ireland, is very accurate. Grainy images show a near primitive landscape, where a cadre of fishermen go on a far-fetched hunt for a shark. Impossibly bleak, unnecessarily brutal, the film is no more exact a portrayal of the Aran Islands than Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy from 1996.

In fact, the playwright’s manifesto for pastiche is most apparent in 

The Cripple of Inishmaan, where a community of islanders are excited by the arrival of the Man of Aran film crew. “Ireland mustn’t be such a bad place if the yanks want to do their filming here,” someone remarks. 

That’s because McDonagh’s version of Ireland is indeed intolerant. The gossip-craving Johnnypateenmike (Phelim Drew), when not force drinking his mother to her grave (Rosaleen Linehan), exposes the locals’ private lives in exchange for groceries. Teenager Helen (Jamie Lee O’Donnell) pelts eggs at anyone and anything. No wonder “Crippled Billy” (Ruairí Heading), forever mocked for his disability and dead parents, wants to escape to Hollywood with the film crew. 

In past productions like A Skull in Connemara and The Pillowman, director Andrew Flynn has shown that McDonagh’s comedies are best when exaggerated, pushing those grotesque worlds closer to Grand Guignol creations. By comparison, this staging for Gaiety Productions is surprisingly handsome, taking place amongst the Aran cliffs where set designer Owen MacCarthaigh has carved out thatched cottage interiors. 

On a stage as attractive as a picture book, performances seem to have the best traction as burlesques of god-fearing and gossipy island natives. Catherine Walsh and Norma Sheahan are superb as Billy’s aunts, regarding their nephew with suspicion. Drew and Linehan both bring cartoonish gestures as nagging son and mother. Though more subdued, Sean Fox’s rugged boatman Babbybobby hits his mark every time.  

If elsewhere the production feels sapped of its energy, it’s because some performances are taken too reverentially. Heading’s Billy is meek and gentle, as if trying to win the audience's sympathy rather than the being the foil to a ferocious comedy. Similarly, Lee O’Donnell is hesitant to give Helen’s gleeful attacks the necessary élan.

The biggest surprise, however, is that the play’s most violent scene is delivered without bloodshed. It’s like watching Pulp Fiction without the brain-splattering gunshot. 

That may leave Flynn's production rather tame but the but it still makes the subversive comedy of The Cripple of Inishmaan hum. Upon his return from Hollywood, Billy reports back on the American film industry's fascination with Ireland as a fairy tale-sounding place of banshees and folklore. 

“A rake of shite,” he says.