April is the cruelest - and most hilarious - month at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, when Les Waters lets loose with another shocking script from Martin McDonagh. In 2007, the Obie Award-winning director scored a direct hit with his extended run of The Pillowman; since then, the Academy Award-winning author released his first feature film, In Bruges. Now Berkeley Rep reenlists these seasoned artists for another vicious comedy: The Lieutenant of Inishmore. Staged in the state-of-the-art Roda Theatre, this edgy farce begins previews on April 17, opens April 22, and closes May 17. BART and Wells Fargo serve as season sponsors for Berkeley Rep's 41st year of fearless theatre, and the executive producers for this show are Marjorie Randolph, Betty and Jack Schafer, and Philip and Shirley Schild.
"I am delighted to be working for a second time on a play by Martin McDonagh," Waters remarks. "His writing is so precise that it's like a mathematical equation made of comedy - and his ability to mix humor with horror is extraordinary. The Lieutenant of Inishmore is a comic masterpiece that looks at the brutality of humanity through the microcosm of one village. While the laughter and the bloodshed flow, it asks serious questions about family, friendship, love, and patriotism. McDonagh is even willing to examine and challenge our sentimental attachment to our favorite pets."
Like all of McDonagh's scripts, The Lieutenant of Inishmore employs explosive dialogue and a perfectly oiled plot that is brutal, bloody, yet irresistibly funny. As part of an I.R.A. splinter group, Padraic thinks nothing of murdering and mutilating his enemies - but the sudden death of his beloved cat leaves him heartbroken. Amidst the comedy and carnage, McDonagh delivers cutting commentary on the endless cycle of violence that engulfs our world. "Best bloody play I ever saw," raves the New York Observer. "No play I've seen in years of theatergoing begins to approach the mad daring of Inishmore. Put simply, this is the first farce about terrorism in the history of the whole wide beautiful world."
"It's perversely amusing and alarmingly real. Audience members regularly scream in shock," the Washington Post exclaims. "Appallingly entertaining," adds the New York Times. "Lieutenant is brazenly and unapologetically a farce. But it is also a severely moral play, translating into dizzy absurdism the self-perpetuating spirals of political violence that now occur throughout the world." "Razor sharp," declares the London Guardian. "This is a terrific play about a serious subject that's touched with a Monty Pythonesque insanity." And The New Yorker calls it "gleeful and macabre... The Lieutenant of Inishmore is a sort of cautionary fairy tale for our toxic times."
Martin McDonagh was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe this year for his first feature film, In Bruges. He already earned an Oscar for his short film, Six Shooter. These are merely the latest accolades in a meteoric career that had humble beginnings. Born and raised in London, McDonagh dropped out of school at 16, went on the dole, and borrowed a how-to book on writing. After trying his hand at short stories, radio plays, and television scripts, he turned to the chapter on playwriting and quickly became a legend. His first play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, was written in only eight days and netted him the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright and the first of four Tony nominations for Best Play. By the age of 26, McDonagh achieved the incredible: he became, as The New Yorker notes, "the first dramatist since Shakespeare to have four works professionally produced on the London stage in a single season." Six of his plays are set in his parents' native Ireland: the Galway trilogy (Beauty Queen, A Skull in Connemara, and The Lonesome West) and the Aran Islands trilogy (The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and The Banshees of Inisheer). Berkeley Rep introduced Bay Area audiences to the macabre world of McDonagh with the West Coast premiere of Beauty Queen in 1999, and in 2007 it presented his seventh show, The Pillowman, winner of England's prestigious Olivier Award. McDonagh recently announced that he will bring a new play to Broadway in 2009, although he promises that someday he'll write "a romantic comedy where hardly anyone gets murdered at all."
Les Waters has been the associate artistic director of Berkeley Rep for the past six years. His shows ranked among the Top 10 Plays of 2007 in Time Magazine, 2006 in the New York Times and 2005 in TimeOut New York. He has a long history of collaborating with prominent playwrights like Caryl Churchill and Charles Mee, and champions important new voices such as Will Eno, Jordan Harrison, and Anne Washburn. At Berkeley Rep, he staged the world premieres of Fêtes de la Nuit, Finn in the Underworld, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), and To the Lighthouse; the American premiere of TRAGEDY: a tragedy; the West Coast premiere of Eurydice; and extended engagements of The Glass Menagerie, The Pillowman, and Yellowman. He won an Obie Award for Big Love, staging its premiere at the Humana Festival and subsequent runs at Berkeley Rep, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Goodman, and Long Wharf Theatre. His other New York credits include Classic Stage Company, the Connelly Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwrights Horizons, The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival, Second Stage Theatre, and Signature Theatre Company. Elsewhere in America, he has directed for ACT/Seattle, American Conservatory Theater, American Repertory Theatre, Arena Stage, Guthrie Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, the Mark Taper Forum, Steppenwolf Theatre Company, and Yale Repertory Theatre. In his native England, Waters has worked with the Bristol Old Vic, Hampstead Theatre Club, Joint Stock Theatre Group, National Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, and Traverse Theatre Club. Waters led the MFA directing program at UC San Diego, serves on the board of Theatre Communications Group, and is an associate artist of The Civilians. His many honors include a Drama-Logue Award, an Edinburgh Fringe First Award, a KPBS Patte, and several awards from critics' circles in the Bay Area, Connecticut, and Tokyo.
