Belfast’s Lyric Theatre and Prime Cut Productions are to reunite following the success of last year’s award-winning staging of The Beauty Queen of Leenane with another Martin McDonagh play, The Pillowman.
First seen at the National Theatre in 2003 when it won an Olivier Award for best new play and subsequently transferred to Broadway, The Pillowman is a macabre portrait of a writer whose nightmarish stories come disturbingly true. Blending absurdity and horror, comedy and terror, it was described by The Guardian as “McDonagh’s most disturbing work to date”.
The co-production with the Lyric will be directed by Prime Cut’s Emma Jordan, who regards The Pillowman as “arguably Martin McDonagh’s best play—its legendary, genre-defying reputation goes before it”.
Jimmy Fay, the Lyric’s Executive Producer, hails the piece as “a masterpiece. Through McDonagh’s trademark dark humour audiences can expect to be provoked and entertained as The Pillowman explores a range of themes from society’s dark undercurrents and censorship to the blurring between fiction and reality”.
Details of casting and design personnel will be released at a later date.
The Pillowman will run on the Lyric’s Main Stage from May 16 to June 15.