The Cripple of Inishmaan

For the last decade, Martin McDonagh has been able to do no wrong on the stages of New York. His plays The Beauty Queen of Leenane, The Lonesome West, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and the The Pillowman have all been critical and commercial hits, earning a handful of Tony wins and nominations. Not a bad record for a playwright still on the short side of 40 whose bleak works deal primarily with the vicissitudes of Irish life. And now, with the staggering economy shutting down big-budget shows like Hairspray and Spring Awakening, a new production of McDonagh's 1996 play about a disabled teenager in the Aran Islands in the early 1930s has been such a hit that its run has been extended.

We lucked into great seats for a recent matinee, and it quickly became apparent why McDonagh resonates so well with New York audiences. His play is full of black humor, sudden shifts in tone, and an even mix of optimistic yearning and cynical realism. McDonagh leads you to believe you have his characters figured out -- you peg Helen as a slatternly miscreant, and JohnnyPateenMike as an exploitative gossipmonger -- only to reveal their complexity in moments that are both organic and shocking. And while the jokes are intimately tied to the play's impoverished rural setting ("Ireland must not be such a bad place if sharks want to come here"), their sardonic darkness is a perfect fit for troubled times in the big city.