Cracking skulls

Let’s be clear: Third Rail’s newest production, A Skull in Connemara isn’t life-changing. It won’t open your eyes to the fantastic world of innovative theatre or leave you on the edge of your seat.

Now that you know what it isn’t, you should also know that A Skull in Connemara is a solid piece of theatre, rife with black comedy, tender moments and the wild shenanigans it seems only the Irish can pull off.

A play about four incredibly different people brought together by boredom, poverty and, often, alcohol, A Skull in Connemara follows a day in the life of a gravedigger—not just any ordinary gravedigger, but one that exhumes graves due to overcrowding in Galway’s church cemetery.

The day comes, while he is training his subordinate, in which he will have to dig up is wife, the wife he killed in a drunk driving accident seven years prior. It may not seem like it, but hilarity does ensue.

Third Rail’s newest home, the World Trade Center Theater, suits the company well, as it provides intimacy while still feeling like a legitimate place to hold a production. Third Rail has gained a reputation for creating consistently good productions of solid, critically acclaimed pieces, taking some risks, but ultimately pleasing the audience with reliable shows.

The World Trade Center Theater keeps the reputation manifested by the company, allowing the audience to feel satisfied with their theater decisions.

One of the lynchpins of the entire production is the superb acting, especially Chris Murray playing Mairtin Hanlon, a naïve teenager with a lot of heart, and perfect comic timing. The character provides most of the comic relief in what would otherwise be a really disturbing piece of theater.

When Murray wasn’t on stage I missed him, because he brought the character to a level in which it was acceptable to partake in the horrific acts performed on stage. Watching Murray is like seeing a teenager involved in teenage antics—you can’t blame them for wanting to be a part of the fun—and if fun in this instance is crushing skulls with a mallet, then Murray excels in showing Mairtin’s enthusiasm for it all.

The other actors give consistent performances, while the rural Irish dialect spoken during the production may be a hard one to grasp (and sometimes decipher) all the actors did rather well, considering the difficulty in pronunciation and tone needed to make such an accent believable.

The acting, however, hinges on the brilliant writing of Martin McDonagh.

McDonagh, a Brit of Irish descent, has gained a bit of celebrity as of late with his Oscar-nominated directorial film debut In Bruges. McDonagh is known for writing trilogies about the everyday life of eccentrics in rural Ireland, using the location as a catalyst for examining the mindset of a population of people behind the times, yet convincingly clever and full of wit.

 A Skull in Connemara is a great first play to ease into the McDonagh aesthetic.

Much more lighthearted than others (The Pillowman) despite the morbid topic and setting, and much more believable than McDonagh’s absurd endeavors (The Lieutenant of Inishmore), A Skull in Connemara has equal parts comedy and tension, making it one of his most well-rounded pieces, while still pushing the envelope on political correctness and good taste.