When The Oxford Blue was first launched, back at the start of 2020, a review of The Pillowman was one of the first articles the “Culture” section published. Five years down the line, it seems fitting that The Blue is once again reporting on a student production of Martin McDonagh’s 2003 dark comedy. Directed by Marianne Nossair and staged by Regents Productions, The Pillowman will be running in seventh week at The Pilch. In this interview, Marianne explores the challenges of staging provocative drama: “we don’t want to lose the shocking factor.” She also encourages aspiring directors that they should “just go for it!”
[Interview has been edited for clarity]
Emma: The Pillowman is a somewhat lesser-known play, so please could you begin by giving us a short synopsis?
Marianne: It’s about a writer [Katurian] who writes gruesome stories about children being murdered and then suddenly children do start dying in the same way. So, the whole play is set in an interrogation room where he’s been taken in and there’s two interrogators asking him questions about what’s happened. Basically, the play just follows that storyline, interspersed with some of his stories.
E: So, The Pillowman involves multiple layers of narrative – not only the overarching framework of Katurian’s interrogation, but also his short stories. How do you navigate this in directing the play?
M: We really thought about how we were going to really show the difference between when it’s the stories and when it’s just the linear narrative. So, what we’ve tried to do is break the fourth wall when it’s the stories. I really liked the idea of people coming in from the aisles between the audience to come and do the stories, and we’ll have a different lighting setting as well to really emphasise that this is the made-up narrative – this doesn’t form part of the rest of the play, but it still adds to and fits in with the rest of the play.
E: The short stories throughout The Pillowman are inspired by McDonagh’s experience in writing fairy tales, I believe. If you could add a real fairy tale – a Grimms’ brothers one – into the mix, what would it be?
M: That’s a really good question. I feel like Little Red Riding Hood would probably fit the theme of the play. I think if you twisted that so that she just doesn’t have a good ending, then it would be very much in line with The Pillowman.
E: What have you found to be the most challenging and/or the most rewarding part of staging The Pillowman?
M: I guess there’s two challenging things about it: it’s the fact that it’s set in the interrogation room – I think it’s so easy to fall into the trap of just having people seated the entire time – then that makes it really boring to watch. But then also the fact that it then suddenly switches into the stories – that’s a lot of scene changes. I think the way we’ve navigated around it is we’re using the stage space, and because we’ve got a thrust stage it’s important that the audience can see. Also, as a director, I hate blackouts. I hate it when the lights go black, and you can just hear the scuffling of people moving stuff around. So, I think we’re going to choreograph various movements during the transitions so that it all works as one piece of drama rather than a stop-start.
E: The relationship between art and morality quite recently has been the subject of a lot of scrutiny. I was wondering where you think McDonagh stands on this.
M: I guess the play does question “can a story cause someone to be a killer?” I think McDonagh doesn’t agree. I think he thinks it can’t force it. Murder will obviously be innate in someone, although a story might give them the inspiration of how to commit a crime. But I think McDonagh thinks that art should still be allowed to be free because for The Pillowman there are so many instances – there’s so much language in there, so many scenes in there that are just truly shocking. So, I think he can’t exactly be against art and thinking it needs to be moral if he’s writing such a play.
E: As you say, some parts of The Pillowman are quite shocking – quite gruesome. Has this posed a challenge in terms of staging it sensitively? What’s your approach for these parts of the play?
M: Well, there’s a lot of excessive antisemitism and ableism. I just think it really shows its age; I think it’s outdated. But then the more gruesome stuff – I think that just presents quite an exciting challenge of how to stage it because we don’t want to lose the gruesomeness. We don’t want to lose the shocking factor of it by being like: “oh it’s student theatre, of course it’s going to look a bit rubbish.” We’re really trying to make it as scary as possible.
E: And you’ve had some previous experience directing, right? You staged a production of Equus last May? Do you have any advice for people starting out in directing student theatre?
M: I think just go for it, because I’d not directed anything before Equus – I just thought “I really want to put this play on.” Then just find a really nice team of people, and don’t be worried to make a mistake because that’s what the rehearsal room is for. You try things out, the actors give their feedback: I find this a collaborative space, really. You’re not just a director – people aren’t just actors. You’re also not paying your actors so it’s definitely a case of listening to what everyone’s saying and making it a nice working space. But I think just go for it.
E: And finally, why should people come to watch The Pillowman?
M: Well, I mean if you want a nice difference from perhaps the lighter plays of the term, then this is definitely going to be the darkest play put on in Oxford in a while probably, but also the cast are so talented. All the designers have created such amazing stuff. There will be some very cool puppetry in it as well, so I think there’s a combination of things that should make you want to go to see it.
[The Pillowman, a production by Regents Productions, will be running at the Michael Pilch Studio in seventh week, 5th-8th March. Buy your ticket here: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/regents-productions]