Hey all! Look, there’s a Boston Globe review on the Atlantic Theatre Company’s version of Cripple of Inishmaan now at ArtsEmerson!! Naomi, you were just talking about this today. I’m not going to make it to see this because of my thesis, but it seems to be taking Boston by storm.
http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2011/02/05/dark_humor_on_the_emerald_isle_in_the_cripple_of_inishmaan/
The article isn’t ground-breakingly eye-opening, but i read on because i had hope, and the second to last paragraph makes a thematic statement which actually reminded me of the universality of the young-man-coming-of-age-coming into his individuality-theme in Neighbors and Gem of the Ocean for example. It’s like cross-culturally a playwright can always create conflict in a piece of drama between generations and small community’s resistance to change. “As with his much bleaker “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,’’ McDonagh displays an acute understanding of the way small communities, where everybody knows everything about everybody and no detail from the past is forgotten, can maintain a suffocating hold on the aspirations of their inhabitants. Even the good-hearted Eileen demonstrates a who-do-you-think-you-are parochialism, snapping peevishly at Billy after his big adventure: “Don’t you be big-wording me again, Billy Claven.’’ The “big word’’ Billy used was “evidently.’’ “
