Pillowman has killer cast

By Ben Cuthrell     11/11/10 6:00pm

On the page, Martin McDonagh's The Pillowman deftly blends violence with comedy so that the reader both laughs out loud and winces. But it takes a live production, played with exuberance and conviction, to really make the script sing. Wiess Tabletop Theater's production of The Pillowman is full of moments that are guaranteed to impress you. Director Jocelyn Wright, a Wiess College senior, and the rest of her cast largely succeed at bringing this production to life through a myriad of little details that suggest they have put in a lot of rehearsal time. The basic framing device for The Pillowman's plot is the tried-and-true police interrogation scene.

The first act opens with detectives Ariel and Tupolski, played by Brown College senior Austin Edwards and Baker College freshman Daniel Echeverri, respectively, pumping writer Katurian (Martel College senior Erik Tanner) for information regarding the recent deaths of two children and the disappearance of a mute girl. Edwards' character Ariel - the explosively violent half of the detecting duo who would love nothing more than to spend all day torturing anyone who so much as thought about hurting a child - breathes life into the first act as he storms around the stage. While his nearly incessant verbal tirade is convincing in a way that is as funny as it is frightening, Edwards really shines in the moments when he has nothing to say; a roll of the eyes or a furious drag at a cigarette while lurking upstage gives the impression that Ariel may have worn out a stress ball or two in his day.

Echeverri's Tupolski, on the other hand, is calm and collected. He looks on coolly from behind thin-rimmed glasses as Edwards blazes back and forth across the stage in a classic good cop/bad cop scenario.

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Tanner, a late addition to the cast who plays writer and main protagonist Katurian, is a brilliant fit for both his character and cast. Nowhere is this more evident than in Act II when he and Wiess College senior Dan Nelson, who plays his "spastic" (read: mentally challenged) brother Michal, bring a humor and warmth to the play that sets all the violence and danger surrounding it into sharp relief. Although there were moments where Nelson's mentally handicapped affectations seemed a bit overdone, his performance got the most laughs by far. The fact that these laughs came from subtle touches like an inexplicably hilarious reaction to a blood stain on his cardigan that is nowhere in the script suggests that by opening night Nelson will be in full swing.

Wiess Tabletop's fall plays typically tend to pale in comparison to their spring counterparts, making the quality of this college production all the more surprising - even the sets are elaborately laid and take up nearly a fourth of the Wiess Commons. Definitely don't miss this production. Deftly mixing violence and comedy, The Pillowman's strong cast is sincerely powerful.

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