One of Martin McDonagh’s best plays, “The Cripple of Inishmaan” has already had two productions off Broadway, but only now is the pitch-dark comedy receiving its Broadway debut, courtesy of director Michael Grandage at the Cort Theater. The reason for the uptown visit (especially since the last “Cripple” was only six years ago at the Public Theater)? Daniel Radcliffe, of Harry Potter renown, is playing the lead character.
He’s Cripple Billy, a put-upon denizen of a miserable Irish island that gets the news that documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty might be coming to make a movie there. Will everything change? Will everything change? Leave it to McDonagh to say “yes” to both, while in the meantime showing ordinary but eccentric people in all their strangeness, humor and ugliness.
So are Broadway critics happy to revisit Inishmaan, or does this visit to the island miss the boat?
Variety’s Marilyn Stasio certainly appreciates the play, calling one scene “a perfect example of McDonagh’s artistry – the sheer hilarity of the comic situation and the aching poignancy of the characters for refusing to see themselves in this wrenching film of their lives.” She also notes that “McDonagh’s sly point here seems to be that Irish humor, so wickedly cutting and clever, doesn’t always mean to inflict pain. There are times when the marvelous musical verbiage that rolls off the silver tongues of the Irish can serve as secretive, even protective camouflage for truths better not spoken.” Stasio finds Radcliffe’s performance “warm and sympathetic” and also lauds Sarah Greene’s “delicious performance” as Helen, a girl “as fierce as she is beautiful.”
David Rooney, of the Hollywood Reporter, says this “grubby jewel of a play” has McDonagh’s “typically spry wit and irreverent ethnographic insight.” Radcliffe “has never been better” but it’s the play’s “entertainingly boozy brew of humor both sweet and savage, melancholy sentimentality, lacerating sorrow and wicked cruelty” that makes the play a must see.
“Daniel Radcliffe has appeared naked on stage, but he’s never been as emotionally raw or as steady on his feet as he is now,” writes Daily News scribe Joe Dziemianowicz. “Radcliffe tightly hugs the curves of the spirited Billy’s journey,” the critic adds. “He vividly captures the melancholy, determination and, all too fleetingly, his joy.” Despite a “vague final moment,” writes Dziemianowicz, Michael Grandage’s staging is “very fine” with Sarah Greene “walking dynamite.”
Giving the show an A-minus grade, Entertainment Weekly’s Thom Geier agrees with other critics that McDonagh’s play teases the viewer into thinking it’s kinder and gentler than it really is, which keeps us “perpetually on our toes.” Radcliffe plays Billy “with a crafty mix of guile and vulnerability” in Grandage’s “exquisite and often uproarious revival” of a “slight but well-wrought 1997 play.”
TheaterMania’s Zachary Sweet is less taken than other critics are with McDonagh’s world view. “If you enjoy nothing more than two hours of schadenfreude,” he writes, “this is the play for you… Gallows humor and the casual use of colorful language make this play a delight to hear…the story, on the other hand, is a big downer.” Nevertheless, Sweet has compliments for the cast, including Radcliffe’s “physically committed, sympathetic performance,” Greene’s “oddly compelling” Helen and June Watson as the “foul-mouthed, whiskey-swigging mother.”
Linda Winer, of Newsday, finds Radcliffe “wonderful” in this “delightfully deadpan revival” of “McDonagh’s incorrigibly rude and gently shrewd satire” with “a lovely cast.”
Calling the production “both raucous and tender,” the Associated Press applauds Radcliffe’s subtle work: “without showboating his twisted arm and leg, Radcliffe gives Billy a physical frailty and inner toughness.” “Memorable and richly drawn,” concludes the review, “Inishmaan” provides “an evening of boisterous theatricality that overlays buried empathy for our shared human frailties.”
New York Times chief critic Ben Brantley agrees and calls the production “splendid” and Radcliffe “entirely convincing.” Previously viewing the comedy-drama itself as “far too twee,” Bratley now finds “Inishmaan” “one of McDonagh’s most substantive plays… As outrageously funny as it often is, the play aches with a subliminal sadness that stays with you.,. This gorgeously realized production has the wisdom to let us laugh until it hurts.”
OVERALL:
Strongly positive to raves across the board, with many critics saying Daniel Radcliffe has never been better onstage. Also look for Sarah Greene to get a Tony nomination alongside director Michael Grandage.
