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Martin McDonaghs newest play was a long time in coming.
As always, I had to find the story and then let the issues just bubble up underneath.
Does it feel like a profound examination of those big subjects its author wanted to tackle?
More like an impish evocation of them but McDonagh has always been more raconteur than moralist.
Even though hes known for splattery shock-and-awe, the playwrights real joys are structure and language.
Ultraviolence aside, he knows how to spin a yarn.
If you lovethis scene fromSnatch, chances are youll have fun withHangmen.
Or rather, he was until recently.
McDonaghs play opens in 1963, when death by hanging was still legal in England.
What follows is a massive set change and a two-year jump forward in time.
Those tight jackets, those heeled boots, all that burnt orange.)
Pierrepoint has haunted Harry for years: the terrified Hennessy even lamented not being executed by the superior hangman.
McDonagh is gleefully setting up bowling pins here.
Hes all unblinking vulpine half-grins, sinister self-amused monologues, and calculated imitations of normal human interaction.
Hes also got a dynamite scene partner in Gaby French as the sweet, angsty, browbeaten-but-still-stubborn Shirley.
French, whos only been out of drama school for a year, all but walks away withHangmen.
It depends on the nun, dont it!
We love Shirley, and we need to: the mounting action ofHangmendepends on our fears for her fate.
!, we get a sense of the anger beneath McDonaghs cleverness.
What, if anything, makes some killings and some killers righteous?
Who decides what justice is and who delivers it?
Hangmenis at the Atlantic Theater Company through March 7.
