The Lieutenant Of Inishmore examined

May 1, 10:24 AMSF Theatre ExaminerLance Gardner

(l to r) At Berkeley Rep, Daniel Krueger and Blake Ellis star in The Lieutenant of Inishmore, another bloody comedy from Obie Award-winning director Les Waters and Oscar-winning writer Martin McDonagh. Photo courtesy of mellopix.com

 There's more than one way to skin a cat, but I like McDonagh's. He brings ultra violence to the stage with all the decorum of a car bomb, keeping tongues in cheeks, but not necessarily heads on bodies.

 The story revolves around the death of Wee Thomas, a cat, best and only friend of a torturous, bloodthirsty, defecting member of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA), a splinter group of the IRA. In an attempt to shield Padraic (Blake Ellis) from the blow of Wee Thomas' violent death, his father Donny (James Carpenter), under who's care the cat was when slain, weaves a yarn about lethargy and a poor appetite which he plans to culminate down the road in the peaceful passing of the animal, but which only brings a worried Padraic home, where three INLA members (Michael Barrett Austin, Rowan Brooks and Danny Wolohan) unhappy with his recent attempts to splinter from their splinter group, await his arrival. Also waiting is Mairead (Molly Camp), the sister of accused cat killer Davey (Adam Farabee) and budding young nationalist with a fat crush and a proclivity for blinding cows with her BB gun from a considerable distance.

 This is a play that is at times so spectacular (thanks to Tolin FX) or spectacularly funny at face value that any underlying statement feels like almost an afterthought. This is because McDonagh is, above and beyond many of his peers, a storyteller, but unlike The Pillowman, in which stories are the story, The Lieutenant of Inishmore wraps you up in the action before the tale takes over. The irony of the willingness to kill for cat and country, without regard for human life is not lost in pools of blood, but skates profoundly atop them in which are reflected the itchy trigger fingers of paramilitary extremists.