Script System and Black Humor in Plays by M. McDonagh

The present paper focuses on intertextuality as a means of black humor in plays by Martin McDonagh, a famous British-Irish playwright. Nine of his plays have been translated into different languages and staged in theatres around the world. However, most theories of comic effect cannot explain the phenomenon of his popularity. This prompted the authors to search for the most accurate and least conditioned way to classify intertext as a means of comic effect in general and black humor in particular. As a result, they chose the semantic theory of humor by V. Raskin and the multidisciplinary general theory of verbal humor developed by V. Raskin and S. Attardo. These theories employ the notions of "script" and "opposition" to examine the linguistic nature of the joke. Using attributed and unattributed intertext inclusions as "signs" or "scripts", the authors analyzed McDonagh’s plays through the prism of this theory. The result was a system of scripts and oppositions that form the chronotope of a long text as opposed to that of a joke. The article also introduces the black humor mechanism in McDonagh's plays: it is based on references to the intertextual thesaurus of the potential reader / theatre audience.

Staging Theatrical Child-Centric Violence

Prolific and controversial British-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh has built a prominent career on genre-bending works that combine irreverent humor and aggressive violence. His award-winning black comedy play The Pillowman, which premiered in 2003 at London's renowned National Theatre, is one of the playwright's most well-known and divisive pieces of theatre. Arguably, the play's most memorable moments involve segments reenacting original twisted fairy tale-esque stories. The majority of McDonagh's dark tales center on children characters enduring acts of violence and cruelty, ultimately concluding with disturbing endings. The Pillowman script offers few instructions in its storytelling scenes, allowing—even demanding—artistic ownership of each production's unique aesthetic approach to the unsettling material. This chapter discusses the divisiveness of McDonagh's work, his inspiration from violence in historical fairy tales, and the sensitive considerations and controversies theatre leadership teams must ponder when staging fictionalized child-centric violence.

On Playwright Canonization

This article engages with the issue of the factors determining theatrical prominence, endorsing the “institutional approach.” In discussing the major mediating role played by theater reviewers in the canonization of individual playwrights, the article focuses particularly on two essential factors that contribute to and affect the processes of their canonization: a convergence of the mediating agents concerning the prominent theatrical contribution of the playwright in question; and the formulation of the playwright’s critical construct (an aggregation of traits recurring in the works seen as typifying the playwright in terms of influences and innovations). The careers of four British playwrights, Harold Pinter, John Arden, Sarah Kane, and Martin McDonagh, serve as the case studies. Three of these — Pinter, Arden, and Kane — demonstrate three differing trajectories that represent two distinctive possibilities, whereby either both factors are at play and canonization follows, or neither is at play and canonization fails. McDonagh represents an intriguing, different possibility in which one factor is at play while the other is absent. Thus, while the careers of three of the playwrights demonstrate the effectivity and consequent implications of the two factors, McDonagh’s trajectory illustrates the consequent effectivity of each factor separately and the relevant implications of such effectivity.

MEET JOHN BRENDAN KEANE ON RUSSIAN SCENE

The article off ers a commentary on a selected fragment of the Russian translation of the play “Th e Field” by the contemporary Irish playwright John Brendan Keane, which was fi rst staged at the annual theater festival in Perm in October 2020. Th e choice of this play as one of the main events of the international Martin McDonagh Festival is explained. Th e article highlights the scale of the festival program, which since 2014 includes performances from 57 countries; the role of organizational and creative initiatives of the theater “At the Bridge” (dir. Sergey Fedotov), creative interpretations of Irish realias and artistic ideas of playwrights on the stage of Russian theaters; an active reception of art critics and the festival-goers. Special attention is paid to the creative idea and cultural contexts of Keane’s play “Th e Field”, as well as the tasks faced by the translator of the play into Russian.