A Very Very Very Dark Matter by Martin McDonagh

When I read that there was a new Martin McDonagh play, I immediately tracked down a script to read it. I harbor fantasies of putting on a show of The Pillowman with the narrated stories being done with puppets (Think about it: a partnership with Uconn Puppetry; bring back Nick LaMedica. It would be brilliant.) I put this in my voting form at TheaterWorks every year. But since no one has bitten, I figured a new play might drum up more interest. My conclusion: It might drum up interest, but we are unlikely to ever perform a show that requires the casting of two Pygmy women (who have to be small enough to fit inside a 3ft by 3ft box, the box's size being very specifically mentioned within the script). In fact, I am rather surprised it has ever been done, given this casting constraint, but more power to the Bridge Theatre in London for pulling it off (although it looks like they doubled up somehow, despite the fact that the only scene the second woman is in is with the first). Casting concerns aside, this show is as dark as the title suggests, and there is, no doubt, something very wrong with me that makes me like it. The aforementioned Pygmy women, being kept in the aforementioned 3ft by 3ft boxes are, in this show, the actual writers of the works of Hans Christian Anderson and Charles Dickens. Take this absurd premise, add some classically British witty banter, and you have won my admiration. The bit about the time-traveling Belgiums is a bit weird (so out of place, right?), but they forward the plot and are the subject of some of that lovely witty banter. In all, this is not a show I would ever attempt or expect anyone else to attempt to put on, but I would certainly go see the movie version.