Written by: Camille Pugliese, Managing Editor
Dear Mr. McDonagh,
I read all nine of your published plays, and I’m a huge fan. You are undoubtedly my favorite playwright of all time.
The first play of yours I read was The Lieutenant of Inishmore right before I went into seventh grade. I found it through a recommendation from an acting teacher. I’m still not sure why this play was given to me to read. I really don’t have a predilection for violence at all Mr. McDonagh. I am the kind of person who squirms at the sight of blood.
In all honesty, Mr. McDonagh, it troubles me that I love your work so much. It isn’t because of the profanity, the violence, or even the blood. The women in your plays are the most troubling aspect of your work for me. The Beauty Queen of Leenane, your first play, is the only play you’ve written with a female protagonist. Why? It’s not like you don’t write magnificent and complex women characters. You write strong women, Mr. McDonagh; like Helen in The Cripple of Inishmaan who has no qualms about disrespecting the clergy and has no problem throwing eggs at people she doesn’t like.
I also have trouble telling people you are my favorite playwright. Most of the plays you write contain some sort of senseless violence – at least, that is what most people tell me when I mention that you are my favorite playwright, Mr. McDonagh. Your plays hold so much more though. Your work has layers: at times it's crude, yet tender, violent, yet passionate. There are remarkable depictions of friendship, love, and sincerity. I want this complexity in my life. It makes everything more interesting.
I should be spending more time with the works of playwrights like Caryl Churchill and Maria Irene Fornes–women who write stories about the depths of feminine identity under the patriarchy. I often wonder if I’m a bad feminist because you are my favorite playwright. I don’t see myself in any capacity in your works. It’s hard for me to identify at all with any of your characters. They find themselves in situations that I would never catch myself in. They have their own code of ethics far removed from my own, but I am still able to connect to them. That might be the entire reason why I love your plays so much.
Mairead in The Lieutenant of Inishmore might be your strongest female character, or maybe she is just the woman with the most agency. My favorite moment in any of your writing is from this. It’s when Mairead, who always loved Padraic, kills him to avenge the death of her cat. Padraic kisses her at length and with a glimmer of what could be true romance. As he does so, Mairead reaches down behind him, picks one gun up in each hand from the table behind him. She slowly raises them and points them, one on each side of Padraic's head, yet he is unaware of this. She shoots Padraic in the head with both guns, and he falls back on the table behind him. Even as he dies, he clutches a cat he’s mistaken for his own. It’s all so absurd, Mr. McDonagh!
You manage to build and release tension all in the same moment. Tension releases because Padraic finally sees Mairead as beautiful, and finally a worthy romantic partner for the most violent and brutal man in all of Ireland. This is finally a chance for them to be together, but Mairead is holding not one, but two guns up to him. Tension builds because Mairead has a gun to the most vicious man in the whole country’s head and he doesn’t even notice it. Mairead is given the same treatment as your male character here. She is able to carry out acts of violence just like the men in your plays are able to do. You prove that women can also be senselessly violent, which is something I never get to see in any other plays. I had to collect my jaw from the floor the first time I read it.
It’s absurd that Mairead kills the only man she ever loved because he killed her cat, but I can understand it as a simple cause and effect, Mr. McDonagh. One action directly causes another. This is what drew me in; your simplicity. Of course, these are two people who love their cats very much, which might complicate things. Your characters have clear motives but are trapped in complex political and personal situations.
You write truly brilliant people, Mr. McDonagh, but really, more of them should be women. This isn’t to say I don’t appreciate your male characters. Carmichael in A Behanding in Spokane is the clear protagonist as the play would not exist if he hadn’t been searching for his hand. Then there is Mervin, the simple hotel clerk who dreams about being a hero one day. Mervin clearly does not have much going on, he spends his days in a seedy motel with no real authority over any of its daily operations yet you give him a full story.
To most, he seems to be an ordinary person, Mr. McDonagh, yet you make it so no one is truly ordinary in your plays –you give them beautiful stories and fully color the world they live in. I especially see your character building skills in this play through the incredibly crafted monologues you give them in this play. When I was auditioning for colleges, I wanted to use something of yours, but I couldn’t find one from any of your women that was challenging enough. I used one of Mervin’s: the one about wanting a pet monkey, going to the zoo drunk, and trying to save the world.
It’s also your words, Mr. Mcdonagh. Your dialogue is still my favorite after everything I’ve read in my last three years studying theatre. For example, I love your prolific use of the word ‘feck.’ I tried to count how many times it appeared in The Lonesome West, but had to stop during the second because it would have been too much of a feat to continue (I counted 67 times). I can’t tell you exactly why I’m so taken by this word. I usually don’t like profanity. Really, I don’t. Yet there is something about the sheer volume of this word in your plays – this word isn’t delicate. Your plays aren’t delicate. I don’t think I’m delicate. Maybe this match, between me and your plays, actually does make sense after all.
Your plays give me an opportunity to feel the breadth of human emotions, Mr. McDonagh. I can laugh at the complete absurdity of A Very Very Very Dark Matter. I can cry, fearing for Billy’s fate in The Cripple of Inishmaan. I can be left horrified and numb by the confession in The Pillowman. Through your work I question violence, I question sanity, but I am really just questioning myself.
Love, Camille
P.S. I love your films too. I saw Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing Missouri in theatres twice in one day. Please write more plays with women like Mildred.
P.P.S. Can I call you Martin?
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