“The Lieutenant of Inishmore” has some bite to it.
“It’s a very dark comedy,” said Eric Brant, who is co-directing Martin McDonagh’s cutting-edge work. It has a Friday through Feb. 13 engagement at Chicago Street Theatre in Valparaiso.
“We’ve done three other McDonagh plays; he always has the unexpected in it,” Brant, of Valparaiso, said. Set in Ireland, the latest McDonagh effort journeys to a desolate road on the island of Inishmore.
A cat belonging to an imposing figure from the Irish National Liberation Army is killed, and that doesn’t sit well with the feline’s owner.
As the troupe’s website puts it, “someone is going to pay.”
Brant likens the feel of “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” to two off-center movies that were considered trendy cinema.
“It’s like ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Fargo’ go to Ireland,” said Brant, who guides a cast of eight.
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The chief character is Padraic, played by Chesterton’s Tom O’Neill. Brant said Padraic’s persona brings an extreme slant to the Irish National Liberation Army. “He’s an enforcer; he’s kind of their muscle,” Brant said.
Chicago Street’s production is recommended for mature audiences. “It’s got violence in it,” Brant said.
After a dreadful fate befalls Padraic’s beloved animal friend, he leaves his violent work in Northern Ireland to embark on a wild revenge spree to pay back whoever is responsible.
The Chicago Street Theatre website invites the public to “take a chance” by experiencing “McDonagh’s darkest, funniest, most absurd play to date.” The troupe previously served up the playwright’s “The Pillowman,” “The Cripple of Inishmaan” and “The Beauty Queen of Leenane.”
The fourth McDonagh production from Chicago Street is being directed by Brant and Valparaiso’s Daena Sisk.
“This is our second collaboration together,” Brant said.
He and Sisk previously directed “Angels of Lemnos,” which, in 2015, won the Overall Best Play award from the Northwest Indiana Excellence in Theatre Foundation. “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” affords the duo an opportunity to dabble in McDonagh’s adventuresome humor.
“I think most of the challenge comes from the technical aspects of the show,” said Sisk, alluding to the staged fighting and gunplay elements of the production. A certain choreography is required for those rough-and-tumble aspects of a play that reflects the meaty slant to McDonagh’s writing.
“Although his work is often compared to playwrights like David Mamet, Sam Shepard and Harold Pinter, the show leans more toward being like the Coen brothers or Quentin Tarantino film,” Sisk said in a news release from Chicago Street Theatre. “McDonagh’s ‘Lieutenant’ gives Eric and I the chance to bring this hysterically edgy type of material to life on stage.”
Bob Kostanczuk is a freelance writer.
‘The Lieutenant of Inishmore’
Where: Chicago Street Theatre, 154 W. Chicago St., Valparaiso
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5-6, 11-13; 2:30 p.m. Feb. 7
Tickets: $17, $20, $30
Information: 219-464-1636, ext. 1; www.chicagostreet.org