Broadway review: Martin McDonagh’s ‘Hangmen’ is a terrifying thriller that says things few dare even to whisper
It’s a fabulous offering — a throwback, really, to the heyday of juicy, creepy London imports by McDonagh (”Pillowman”), Conor McPherson (”Shining City”) and Mark Ravenhill (”Jerusalem”). Meticulously directed by Matthew Dunster and designed within an inch of its life by the brilliant Anna Fleischle, it offers up dextrous plotting, sardonic satire, subtle observations about the gray northern life and, above all, an unforgettable central character in Harry, a hangman who also loses his job and who also decides to run a pub in Oldham, Lancashire.
Keep Reading
‘for colored girls’ Is a Timeless Movement in Compassion
After playwright Ntozake Shange’s death in 2018, her sister—the playwright Ifa Bayeza—said, “I don’t think there’s a day on the planet when there’s not a young woman who discovers herself through the words of my sister.” As I watched the revival of Shange’s “choreopoem” for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow […]
Read More
‘How I Learned To Drive’ is a Nuanced Exploration of Memory
As the adage goes, “More Vogel, less Mamet.” Right now on Broadway, this is just beginning to come true, or at least approaching it. Although we have to suffer through both David Mamet’s problematic and dangerous rant about male teachers being pedophiles and a lackluster revival of American Buffalo, we also are graced–thank God–with a […]
Read More