For me, not his best. The wicked, devastating humor of his previous plays leaves this one lagging behind. I thoroughly enjoyed it but I feel that the critics and fans heaping so much praise onto it aren't really being honest with themselves. Yes I"m thrilled to see his work back in a playhouse too; but he has made such strides in his writing since his early days that the easy-laughs humor of this one feels like a step backwards. For me the problem was in some of the ways he strings along the dialogue to deepen the tension and sense of dread. The absolute master is Quentin Tarantino and any of the dialogue scenes with a gun drawn (specifically Inglorious Basterds and The Hateful Eight) are textbooks on how this type of scene is done. I felt McDonagh was following in his footsteps but coming into his own style very well until this play. There is a fine line between skillfully stretching the tension in a scene and just being plain old silly. In Hangmen, he falls into this trap a few times but the most eye-rolling moment was ...SPOILER...
the "smell my hair" moment. The moment he went to the first character to do that, I rolled my eyes and thought, "oh boy, here goes...I bet he's going to slooooowly walk over to EVERY character on stage and repeat that." Sure enough... Moment's like this don't seem skillful, they appear self indulgent and gimmicky. With that said, I'm still a fan; I think he has an entertaining style and I will remain hopeful that his next one will be better. |
