Martin McDonagh—who has revitalized the English-language theater since 1996 with The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Cripple of Inishmaan, and The Pillowman—is back with his first play since 2010. The wait was well worthwhile: Hangmen is as chilling, gripping and invigorating as the best of them. Beauty Queen’s stove-top sizzle; The Lieutenant of Inishmore’s beloved cat, Wee Thomas; and now, Harry Wade’s noose and the Babycham man.
Harry Wade (Mark Addy) is England’s Chief Hangman. But not No. 1 Hangman, and there’s the rub; the retired Albert Pierrepoint holds the title and the record for most executions, leaving the blustery Harry very much on the defensive. The play opens with Harry and his mousy assistant Syd (Reece Shearsmith) dispatching a prisoner named Hennessy, who proclaims his innocence and bemoans his fate to be “hung by a rubbish hangman.” (“Hanged,” the stuttering Syd helpfully corrects him, not “hung.”)
The rest of the action takes place two years later, starting on the day in 1965 when the death penalty in Great Britain was abolished, thus throwing practitioners of the trade into enforced retirement. Most of what follows is set in the time-worn pub Harry runs with his gin-sipping wife Alice (Sally Rogers). The banter of the assembled barflies—who include a police inspector who somehow never leaves his bar stool, and a hard-of-hearing bloke who is far funnier than he ought to be—is interrupted by Clegg from the Oldham Gazette (Owen Campbell), looking for an interview with the last hangman. Harry modestly and repeatedly refuses, until Clegg threatens to go interview #1 Pierrepoint instead.
Enter a mysterious stranger—Peter Mooney (Johnny Flynn), one of McDonagh’s most memorable creations—who pouts Nietzsche and Kierkegaard and carries an ever-present air of menace over his head like a cartoon cloud over a Charles M. Schulz character. “He just don’t know the ropes,” opines Alice; or does he? Add into the mix a “mopey and shy” fifteen-year-old—Harry and Alice’s overweight daughter Shirley (Gaby French)—and you have a recipe for macabre, mordant and murderous comedy of the blackest hue.
Flynn heads the cast with his mesmerizingly mysterious outsider, who seems to wander into the North Country pub from another world entirely (and perhaps, with a wink of McDonagh’s eye, from a Pinter play). Flynn is thoroughly commanding, with a daggerlike twinkle in his sleepily dangerous eyes. Addy, as the hangman, is solid and as impenetrable as a porous wall, shielded by a bluster which the wiser characters easily pierce at will.
Rogers mixes the frustration of years of marital boredom with strong maternal protection of “our Shirley,” and brings emotion into play as the action ratchets up. Shearsmith—like Flynn and Rogers a holdover from the original London cast—remains as creepy and shy as ever, almost fading into the walls in self-effacement. He also provides the most explosive sight gag of the evening, which has to do with a set of car keys.
As is typical in McDonagh plays, the direction is pinpoint perfect. Matthew Dunster is wholly immersed in the text, capturing and enlightening the playwright’s every nuance. Anna Fleischle provides a similarly flavorful design; you can practically smell the stale ale emanating from her barroom, and she gives us a couple of surprises and a stunning dazzling coup de théâtre as well. (Fleischle’s set won her not only last season’s Olivier but the Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard awards.) Speaking of menace, note the peach-colored lining of the overcoat Fleischle has designed for Mooney: this character might not be murderous, but he is the embodiment of danger. Joshua Carr heightens the mood promulgated by author and director with expertly atmospheric lighting. McDonagh’s new play is down at the Atlantic, which similarly launched Beauty Queen and The Lieutenant of Inishmore. (Both immediately catapulted to Broadway, as is likely with the totally sold out new play.)
Since writing Hangmen—which premiered at the Royal Court in 2015 and transferred to the West End, taking the 2016 Olivier Award for Best New Play—McDonagh has achieved international fame courtesy of his third film as director/screenwriter, the justly-acclaimed Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Which, certainly, has been seen by more people than all his plays combined. Excellent as Three Billboards is, though, Hangmen points up the fact that cinema cannot quite compare to the blood-curdling, heart-stopping chills with which McDonagh regularly enwraps his eagerly willing playgoers.
Hangmen opened February 5, 2018 and plays through March 25 at the Linda Gross Theater. Information and tickets: atlantictheater.org
