Stressing stupid vengence and callous violence of self-styled Irish "liberators," FST's The Lieutenant of Inishmore shows ruthless Padraic as an over-the-top yet typically sadistic terrorist. When his da, Donny, on Inishmore isle calls to tell him his cat wee Thomas is ailing, Padraic drops torturing a drug dealer strung up in an Ulster warehouse and heads home. Because the cat already is roadkill, Donny and slow-witted, effeminate Davey, who found and brought him back, catch a tabby to disguise as wee Thomas with bootblack. Padraic arrives to find them smeared, sotted, sleeping. About to shoot them, as he has the substitute cat, he's erotically distracted by Davey's teen-age sister Mairead. She's long had the hots for Padraic, and in hopes of joining him, has been pop-gunning eyes out of cows -- for practice and to cut their market value.
Then come the real cat-killers, a trio of terrorists financed by a share of drug dealers' profits. To reinforce these, they've lured Padraic back to kill him.
Soon, with would-be killers and victims changing places from turn to turn, there's blood all over the place. Ha! Long hair cut. Ho! And fecking. Tee, hee! Bodies dismembered. Ha! Only for dead cats are regrets expressed. There've been no other transgressions. Just the playing of "Patriot Games" (actions as well as the oft-heard theme song). A new lieutenant triumphs. But is Ireland freer? How about for cats?
No doubt of the power of author McDonagh's language. Eric Miller's Padraic uses it perfectly with matter-of-fact perversity. In his black leather, he's a match in dress as well as menacing manner for terrorists Christy (Patrick Jones, frightening), wearing a patch over the eye Padraic put out; Brendan (Dean Bowden, epitome of a go-along); not-yet-unreasonable Joey (David Ojala, stressing youth).
In his unthinking violence, Padraic is clearly the heir of Donny as played by crusty David Vining. Jerzy Gwiazdowski makes his mark as nervous Davey, himself a mark for everyone.
Though too old and seemingly sexually experienced, Amy Tribbey conveys Mairead's eager abandon. Her habitual lack of thought before acting makes her extreme final action credible. Not only for endurance while hanging during torture does Edgar Landa merit praise but also for believable choreography of physical clashes and their aftermath.
Director Victoria Holloway hasn't mitigated any of the bloody scenes' horror even with their humor -- yes, considerable humor. McDonagh has created so much comedy, in fact, that it's hard to classify his play. It's black comedy, of course, but Holloway has insisted on it dramatically making terrorism absurd and abhorrent. Her tecnical colleagues help her, and the cast convey the bleakness of the Northern Ireland dark warehouse and threadbare cottage with the suggestion of remote road outside.
What a difference between McDonagh's Inishmore and Yeats' Innisfree!
