The joke at the heart of Martin McDonagh’s 2001 black comedy has a lot in common with that of The Sopranos. The novelty of David Chase’s TV series was in seeing a bunch of New Jersey mobsters not only going about their murderous business but also taking it easy in their suburban homes. Torture one day, Sunday lunch the next.
The Lieutenant of Inishmore offers a similarly comic juxtaposition. On the one hand, Padraic is an unhinged paramilitary killer, a man too extreme for membership of the IRA. On the other, he is sentimentally attached to his pet cat. Tending to the animal is the only thing that could make him abandon a torture session. A psychopath with a soft spot is doubly scary.
McDonagh has other games to play. The first is a cottage setting that in its spartan simplicity suggests the Irish dramas of nearly a century earlier. Rendered here by Ellie Light, it offers only a chattering pop radio and a 1990s bicycle to suggest this is not a play by JM Synge. The grim story, with all its bloody retribution, is one that forever repeats itself. “Will it ever end?” one asks.
Which is also the thinking behind the preposterous plot in which Thomas, Padraic’s feline friend, is only the first cat to be slaughtered. Others follow. Padraic, a self-styled INLA lieutenant, is comically affected by his pet’s loss, but there is nothing funny about the consequences. The Lieutenant of Inishmore observes conflict escalating from the slenderest of motives.
There is a provocatively uneasy balance between gallows humour and real-world violence – and it is one that Chris Sonnex’s production has yet to get quite right. Showing more authenticity than clarity in their Aran island accents, the actors rattle through the play with much energy but not always enough subtlety to distinguish between knockabout comedy and life-and-death drama.
There are strong performances from Julian Moore-Cooke as Padraic, believable in both his ferocity and tenderness (a little less so his insanity), and Katherine Devlin as Mairead, a wannabe soldier, played with ruthless delight. But for all their efforts there is some unevenness before the plot roars into gory life.
At Everyman, Liverpool, until 12 October
