MARTIN McDonagh's first play to be produced at the Cottesloe - one of the Royal National Theatre's three stages in London - triumphantly endorses the plaudits lavished on his first, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, which played at the Royal Court. Here again are the elements of a creative structure, language out on a spree, strongly individual characters and an irresistible dramatic undertow. With The Cripple of Inishmaan, the author makes it plain that he is on stage to stay.
The marvellously inventive story centres on Billy, a badly crippled youth whose parents died at sea when he was a child, living on the Aran island of Inishmaan with two kindly, pretend aunts. On the neighbouring island of Inishmore, an American film director, Robert O'Flaherty, is about to make a famous film; and Billy sees a chance to escape his confined life and despised status. By dint of lying and desperation, he gets his chance, with odd consequences for his aunts and neighbours.
And what a bunch they are, huddled together in near incestuous proximity on their primitive island. Billy's half loopy aunts run a small shop. Their customers include Johnnypateenmike, literally a news vendor, who has been trying for years to kill his aged mother with drink, to no avail. Bartley is a cute youth with a sweet tooth and a ferocious and promiscuous sister, Helen. Babbybobby is a boatman who can deal a favour or a blow, unpredictably. And there is a doctor on the island, bemused by his patients.
Thrown together, they all create a world that is unreal yet totally credible. It is a hilarious one to watch and listen to, where the ludicrous values and duelling dialogue so parallel the familiar as to constitute a biting satire on it. And yet, whenever laughter seems to be in the ascendant, there comes a revelation of savagery and tragedy that throws it all back into the author's creative melting pot.
Nicholas Hytner's direction of his cast is impeccable. Against Bob Crowley's stunning design of storm blown dwellings set against vertiginous cliffs, he modulates and harmonises their performances quite beautifully. And what a cast he has assembled. Anita Reeves and Dearbhla Molloy are the aunts, Ray McBride the newsman and Doreen Hepburn his bibulous mammy, Owen Sharpe and Aisling O'Sullivan the warring siblings, Gary Lydon the boatman and John Rogan the doctor. Which leaves only Ruaidhri Conroy, making a brilliant stage debut as Billy.
The play holds its audience in a dramatic vice until the final stage, which offers so many alternatives, before it chooses the only right one, as to be almost confusing. But this is true to the embarrassment of riches which has preceded it, and the mark of this extraordinary new voice in the English speaking theatre.
