The Pillowman

While still in his twenties, the Anglo-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh has filled houses in New York and London, been showered with the theater world's most prestigious accolades, and electrified audiences with his cunningly crafted and outrageous tragicomedies. His latest play, The Pillowman, is the tale of a writer in an unnamed totalitarian state who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of child murders occurring in his town. With echoes of Stoppard and Kafka, this Grand Guignol-cum-Grimm's fairy tale unnervingly explores the connection between creativity and suffering.