The Guys
The Lieutenant of Inishmore
By Martin McDonagh
Directed by David M. Jenkins
Extended! Mar. 19 – Apr. 12, 2009
Thu. – Sat. 8pm, Sun. 4pm
Tickets: $24.50
Shimberg Playhouse, Straz Center for the Performing Arts
Winner!
- Creative Loafing Best of the Bay – Reader's Poll Best Actress Finalist – Kari Goetz
A Tampa Bay premiere!
On a lonely road on the tiny Irish island of Inishmore, someone has killed an Irish National Liberation Army enforcer's cat. The enforcer loves his cat more than life itself, and when he returns from a stint of torture and chip-shop bombing in Northern Ireland, someone is going to pay.
"You can't imagine how many dramatic developments, how much horror, how much comedy McDonagh spins as a consequence of [a] cat's death … his blackest, funniest, most violent, most absurd… play to date." – Financial Times
Author of Jobsite’s 2006 production of The Pillowman (credited as a Top 10 production by Creative Loafing, earned Steve Garland a Creative Loafing Best Actor of the Bay Award and scored four Jobsite Jobby Awards, including Best Play), Martin McDonagh returns to Jobsite for the third time with The Lieutenant of Inishmore, a gruesome high-octane comedy that won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy.
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The Lieutenant of Inishmore is a stunningly, disturbingly funny tale of a young man and his cat. It’s a wickedly hilarious event utilizing a half-dozen stage firearms, approximately six gallons of stage blood per night and a slew of special effects rigs that must be seen to be believed.
McDonagh’s masterpiece is not an anti-terrorist play, but a satire of the nature of terrorism, which centers on “Mad Padraic” Osbourne, a first lieutenant in the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a group that splintered from the IRA in the 1970’s owing to the IRA’s “overly moderate” outlook on the situation in the North.
Nothing is sacred to Padraic except his cat, Wee Thomas, and freeing Northern Ireland from the oppressive rule of England. When he learns that Wee Thomas is “doing poorly,” he rushes home to the Aran Island of Inishmore, only to find that his beloved friend is a biteen more than poorly – he’s, as the Irish would say, brownbread!
The resulting action blends the comic precision of a Feydeau farce with the non-apologetic graphic violence of a Tarantino flick, as Padraic contends with Mairead, a 16-year-old girl (who is crazy about him and can blind cows with a popgun from 60 yards), her brother Davey (who rides his mother’s pink bicycle), Padraic’s eccentric father Donny, and three fellow INLA members who are none-too-happy with Padraic.
About the Artists
The Lieutenant of Inishmore is directed by Producing Artistic Director David M. Jenkins (who was in Jobsite’s production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane and directed The Pillowman), presiding over a cast featuring Ned Averill-Snell, Jason Vaughan Evans, Steve Garland, Kari Goetz, Chris Holcom, Matt Lunsford and Dominic Russo. The design team is comprised of Brian Smallheer, Katrina Stevenson, Chris Holcom and David M. Jenkins. Jobsite is renting many of the special effects rigs from Pennsylvania-based effects artist Steve Tolin. See more about the cast and crew.
Martin McDonagh wrote and directed Six Shooter, which in 2006 earned him the Academy Award for Best Live-Action Short Film. Six Shooter starred Brendan Gleeson, who would also later appear in his full-length feature film In Bruges alongside Colin Farrell and Ralph Feines. In Bruges was recently honored with an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. As a playwright, Mr. McDonagh has twice won the Olivier Award — for The Pillowman and The Lieutenant of Inishmore — and been nominated for the Tony Award four times (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Lonesome West, The Pillowman, The Lieutenant of Inishmore). His other plays include The Cripple of Inishmaan and A Skull in Connemara. Born in London to Irish parents, Mr. McDonagh's works have been translated and staged in 41 countries to date.
