Stage Write

When I first saw the Phoenix Theatre’s production of " The Lieutenant of Inishmore " in 2008 I loved the unique feel of the Irish black comedy. The theatre’s current show “The Cripple of Inishmaan” is by the same playwright, Martin McDonagh, and has a similar tone. Set on the Aran Islands in 1934, we see the chaos caused when a Hollywood director visits to make a film. There’s a cruelty in small towns. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. They’ve all grown up together, so there’s a comfort level that tends to ignore privacy. No one flinches in calling someone a degrading nickname or referring to an embarrassing moment in their past, because it’s all common knowledge. It’s that very familiarity that can be so claustrophobic to residents. Nathan Robbins is our title character, Cripple Billy, and he feels more suffocated than anyone. Each member of the excellent cast adds their own eccentric layer to the rich fabric of the community. Ryan O’Shea is the bras...

The Phoenix Theatre presents "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" on its main stage. The black comedy follows a crazy Irish man, Padraic, whose pet cat meets an untimely end. The death of the animal opens a big can of worms in the tiny hamlet, Inishmore Shane Chuvalas as Padraic is excellent in his obscene madness. He's off his rocker, but his own strange way he means well and his loyalty to his feline is oddly touching. Padraic is a member of a rebel group in Ireland. His haphazard way of punishing those who cross the moral line have put his fellow Irish National Liberation Army, (INLA) members on edge. When he decides to torture a drug pusher who has been paying them off they decide it's the last straw and the group turns on him. When Padraic returns home to tend to his ailing pet a trap awaits him. Joanne Dubach plays Mairead, a spitfire of a girl whose ambitions to join the INLA are stunted by her gender. She's the only person who could dare to match Padraic's in...