The Pillowman is a 2003 play by British-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh . It received its first public reading in an early version at the Finborough Theatre , London, in 1995, also a final and completed version of the play was publicly read in 1998 and then finished and released as a book in some places in 1999. Production started in 2000 for the eventual 2003 performance. It tells the tale of Katurian, a fiction writer living in a police state , who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of bizarre child murders occurring in his town. The play received the 2004 Olivier Award for Best New Play, the 2004-5 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best New Foreign Play, and two Tony Awards for production. It was nominated for the 2004 Evening Standard Award for Best New Play.
28-471: Katurian, a writer of short stories that often depict violence against children, has been arrested by two detectives, Ariel and Tupolski, because some of his stories resemble recent child murders. When he hears that his brother Michal has confessed to the murders and implicated Katurian, he resigns himself to being executed but attempts to save his stories from destruction. The play contains both narrations and reenactments of several of Katurian's stories, including
56-573: A Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy. Soon after graduation, O'Toole became drama critic of In Dublin magazine in 1980. He joined the Sunday Tribune on its relaunch by Vincent Browne in 1983, and worked as its drama critic, literary editor, arts editor, and feature writer. From 1986 to 1987 he edited Magill magazine. O'Toole joined The Irish Times as a columnist in 1988 and his columns have appeared twice-weekly ever since. He took
84-489: A cell, Katurian just having been tortured. Michal reveals that he had not been tortured, but rather cooperated entirely with Ariel, even screaming when Ariel asked him to. At Michal's request, Katurian tells him the story of "The Pillowman", about a man made of pillows who convinces children to kill themselves so they can be spared a horrible future. Michal admits to having killed the children, claiming that Katurian told him to do it through his stories. Michal says that he murdered
112-407: A horrific accident, she is sent to live with abusive foster parents. Annoyed by her pretensions, the foster parents crucify her and bury her alive so that she might rise again in three days, but she does not. Katurian writes out a false confession and adds the names of his mother and father to the list of people he has killed. When Katurian sees how eager Ariel is to torture him, he guesses that Ariel
140-641: A sabbatical in 1990–1991 to work as literary adviser to the Abbey Theatre . In 1994 he was one of the presenters for the last season of BBC TV's The Late Show . From 1997 to 2001 he was drama critic of the Daily News in New York. In 2011, he was appointed as literary editor of The Irish Times . He also has published articles regularly in the New York Review of Books , and The Guardian . In 2017, O'Toole
168-586: A trade deal to be negotiated. The proposal required seven Sinn Féin MPs in northern Irish border constituencies to resign in favour of a pact between the four largest anti-Brexit parties in Ireland, thereby triggering by-elections at a certain date in mid-September. O’Toole believed they would result in a more hardline anti-Brexit parliamentary faction that would make a stronger case for a no-confidence vote in Johnson. The proposal
196-562: Is an Irish journalist, literary editor , and drama critic for The Irish Times , for which he has written since 1988. O'Toole was drama critic for the New York Daily News from 1997 to 2001 and is Advising Editor and a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books . He is also an author, literary critic, historical writer and political commentator. In 2011, O'Toole was named by The Observer as one of "Britain's top 300 intellectuals", despite not being British nor living in
224-488: Is filled with rocks and sewn with green wire, leading to the wolf's death. McDonagh's comment – "I would love to write something as horrific as that if I could" – indicates a potential inspiration for the story "The Little Apple Men" in The Pillowman . The original London and Broadway productions of the show featured music composed by Paddy Cunneen. The play received its first public reading in an early version at
252-563: The Sunday Independent : We as a paper are not shy of preaching about corporate pay and fat cats but with this, there is a sense of excess. Some of the sums mentioned are disturbing. This is not an attack on Ms Kennedy, it is an attack on the executive level of pay. There is double-standard of seeking more job cuts while paying these vast salaries. In June 2012, O'Toole compared the Irish Constitutional Convention to
280-560: The Booth Theatre and closed on 18 September 2005. Directed by John Crowley, the cast included Billy Crudup as Katurian, Michael Stuhlbarg as Michal, and Jeff Goldblum as Tupolski. The play was revived from 10 June 2023 to 2 September 2023 at the Duke of York's Theatre in London 's West End , directed by Matthew Dunster . Fintan O%27Toole Fintan O'Toole (born 16 February 1958)
308-556: The Iraq War , and the U.S. military's use of Shannon Airport , among many other issues. In 2006, he spent six months reporting for The Irish Times in China. O'Toole's former editor, Geraldine Kennedy , was paid more than the editor of the UK's top non-tabloid newspaper, The Daily Telegraph , which has a circulation about nine times that of The Irish Times . Later, O'Toole told a rival Irish paper,
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#1733092330332336-652: The American Citizens Union , a reformist political organisation that the New York City political machine Tammany Hall did not bother to suppress so long as it did not threaten its hegemony. In August 2019, after the selection of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom , O'Toole proposed to get Parliament to back an alternative Cabinet who would push back the October deadline for Brexit to allow
364-525: The Finborough Theatre, London, in 1995 in a season that included Shopping and Fucking by Mark Ravenhill . It premiered on 13 November 2003 at the Royal National Theatre , directed by John Crowley . The original production starred David Tennant as Katurian, Jim Broadbent as Tupolski, Nigel Lindsay as Ariel and Adam Godley as Michal The play opened on Broadway on 10 April 2005 at
392-614: The U.S. An April 2020 column in The Irish Times asserted that Trump's destruction of the public image and reputation of the United States culminated with his bungling of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis , and that subsequently pity was the only appropriate feeling for the American people, the majority of whom had not voted for him. In a 2024 New York Review of Books essay, O'Toole rejects
420-677: The United Kingdom. In 2012 and 2013, O'Toole was a visiting lecturer in Irish letters at Princeton University and contributed to the Fund for Irish Studies Series. O'Toole was born in Dublin in a working-class family. He was educated at Scoil Íosagáin and Coláiste Chaoimhín in Crumlin (both run by the Christian Brothers ) and at University College Dublin (UCD). He graduated from the university in 1978 with
448-726: The Wolfboy", "The Short Fellow and the Strange Frog", and "The Violin and the Drunken Angel", early in his writing career. Attempting to rewrite fairy tales he remembered from childhood, he realized that "there's something dark about them that doesn't quite come through." In a conversation with Irish drama critic Fintan O'Toole in BOMB Magazine in 1998, McDonagh retold the Brothers Grimm version of Little Red Riding Hood . The wolf's stomach
476-501: The autobiographical "The Writer and the Writer's Brother", which tells how Katurian developed his disturbed imagination by hearing the sounds of Michal being tortured by their parents. Ariel and Tupolski interrogate Katurian in a police room, adopting a good cop/bad cop routine with Ariel happily playing the bad cop. At first Katurian does not know why he is being questioned, and thinks he is under suspicion of running political messages against
504-505: The children like he confessed, but they decide to execute him anyway for murdering his parents and vow to destroy his stories. Before Ariel can execute him, Katurian tells them about the torture Michal suffered in order for Katurian to become a better writer. Tupolski shows no empathy and shoots Katurian in the head. Left alone with Katurian's stories, Ariel decides not to burn them. The Pillowman stemmed in part from McDonagh's experience composing fairy tales, with names such as "The Chair and
532-439: The common interpretation of William Shakespeare 's tragedies in terms of protagonists' flaws leading to their own destruction. "So what does Shakespeare teach us?" he asks, and replies: "Nothing. His tragic theater is not a classroom. It is a fairground wall of death in which the characters are being pushed outward by the centrifugal force of the action but held in place by the friction of the language. . . . We return to
560-433: The mattress, clutching the manuscript of a beautiful story, better than any of Katurian's, which Katurian burns. Katurian interrupts his narrative to say that this ending was fabricated when he wrote the story: when he broke down the door, he found Michal still alive. Katurian smothered his parents with a pillow that very night in vengeance for his disabled brother and the abuse he suffered. Katurian and Michal are together in
588-489: The next room, and as a result he began to write more disturbing stories. One night, a note is slipped under the door, claiming that Katurian's brother has been tortured nightly for seven years as part of an artistic experiment to get Katurian to become a great writer. Katurian breaks down the door, only to find his parents, who were playing a trick on him, pretending to be torturing a child. However, when Katurian returns years later, he discovers his brother's dead body hidden under
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#1733092330332616-448: The pain of being executed. Katurian calls to the detectives, announcing his intention to confess to the crimes on the condition that his stories are preserved. Katurian tells the others the story of "The Little Jesus", which was thought to inspire the third murder. A young girl believes that she is the second coming of Jesus, and blesses unsavory characters, to the dismay of her parents and annoyance of others. When her parents are killed in
644-523: The patterns of the stories "The Little Apple Men" and "The Tale of the Town on the River." Katurian denies the allegations, stating that although his stories are gruesome it is the job of a storyteller to tell a story. In his own narrative, Katurian describes being raised by loving parents who encouraged him to write, and for many years he wrote very happy stories. However, at night he began to hear sounds of torture from
672-434: The third child after hearing Katurian's story "The Little Jesus", one of his most violent. Michal tells Katurian that he had read the written version of "The Writer and the Writer's Brother", and resented the changes from their lives, wishing that Katurian had written a happy ending for the two brothers. Katurian lulls Michal to sleep by telling him one of his happier stories, "The Little Green Pig", then smothers him to save him
700-435: The totalitarian dictatorship through his stories. The detectives and Katurian discuss grisly stories involving children. Ariel leaves the room, and soon after Michal is heard screaming in the next room. Ariel returns, his hand covered in blood from apparently torturing Michal, and tells Katurian that Michal has just confessed to killing three children, in association with Katurian. The first two children were murdered according to
728-579: Was commissioned by Faber and Faber to write the official biography of Seamus Heaney . O'Toole said of the process that his "one terror is that [Heaney's] favourite communication mode was the fax, and faxes fade." In 2018, he was awarded the UCD Alumni Award in Arts & Humanities. O'Toole has criticised what he sees as negative attitudes toward immigration in Ireland, the state of Ireland's public services, growing inequality during Ireland's economic boom,
756-454: Was sexually abused by his father. Before Ariel can begin the torture, Tupolski tells them that the third child might still be alive and Ariel leaves to find her. When Ariel returns with the girl, she is not injured but covered with green paint, revealing that Michal had not reenacted the story of "The Little Jesus" but "The Little Green Pig." It is apparent to Ariel and Tupolski that Katurian was unaware of this and therefore could not have murdered
784-566: Was sharply criticised by Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald , who claimed the existing anti-Brexit factions in Parliament were strong enough without the party making too many policy concessions. A 26 June 2018 column in The Irish Times by O'Toole examined how the Donald Trump administration's policies and public-facing communications about immigration and asylum-seekers from Mexico might be deliberately calculated to bring elements of fascism to
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