By now, it should be fairly obvious to Pittsburgh area
theatergoers that Andrew Paul has an affinity for the works of playwright
Martin McDonagh.
As co-founder and artistic director of PICT Classic Theatre
from 1996 to 2013, Paul produced three McDonagh plays, “Cripple of Inishman”
(2000), “The Pillowman” (2006) and “The Lieutenant of Inishman” (2007). All
three were Pittsburgh premieres.
Starting on August 7, now as artistic director of the
Kinetic Theatre Company, the prolific producer will introduce Pittsburgh
audiences to yet another McDonagh opus, a dark comedy ominously titled “Hangmen.”
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| David Whalen, James Fitzgerald, & Simon Bradbury in HANGMEN. Photo by Rocky Raco, |
“Not only am I a fan of the playwright, but I also like him
for his broad appeal and the fact that he draws younger audiences who may already
be familiar with his work in films like In Bruges and Three
Billboards,” Paul said. “He’s very hip.”
“Hangmen” is set in 1965, just after the United Kingdom
abolished the death penalty, and the public is clamoring to hear what Harry
Wade, the country’s second-best hangman and of-the-moment celebrity, has to say
about it. As the news breaks, Harry’s pub is overrun with locals
and reporters looking for a quote until a visitor arrives with a darker and
more mysterious agenda.
“In his play, McDonagh pens the right balance by considering
the serious issues of hanging and capital punishment and infusing it with
considerable humor,” Paul said.
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To cast his production, Paul said he had English-born
actor, Simon Bradbury, in mind from the start to play the lead character, Harry
Wade. Bradbury managed to see the play in London and liked it so much he sent
Paul the script.
Enamored with the play’s potential, Paul caught a
performance as soon as it came to these shores at the off-Broadway, Atlantic
Theater, and again when it ran on Broadway.
“For years, I’ve worked with a loose repertoire of actors including Bradbury, James Fitzgerald and David Whalen and cast them in ’Hangmen,’” Paul said. “For the younger actors, I tapped into the wealth of local talent coming out of the theater departments of Carnegie-Mellon and Point Park University.”
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| James Fitzgerald & Charlie Kennedy in HANGMEN. Photo by Rocky Raco. |
For
the youthful roles of Mooney and Shirley, as an example, Paul chose Charlie
Kennedy and Sara Joyce Reynolds respectively. Both are 2025 Point Park
University grads.
One
technical challenge Paul said he faces is the fact that the script calls for
the execution of two men by hanging. To pull off the requisite executions, Paul
said his staff has been putting in a “lot of brain power” to create realistic
moments while, at the same time, ensuring that the actors remain completely
safe.
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| Simon Bradbury to portray Hangman Harry Wade Courtesy Photo |
As
a point of interest, one of the characters in the play, Albert Pierrepoint, considered
England’s number one executioner, is thought to have executed as many as 600 people
in a 25-year career that ended in 1956. During his tenure, he executed a large number of Nazis convicted of crimes at the Nuremburg trials. Of all the cast members, Bradbury is
the most well-read on the subject of hanging and his list of books includes
Pierrepoint’s autobiography.
Bradbury
avers that Pierrepoint believed that hanging was the best way to execute
people. Explaining that he had the craft of hanging down to a science, he estimated
the appropriate length of the drop from the scaffold by taking into
consideration the weight, age and height of the person executed as well as
thickness of his or her neck.
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“The time he took between entering the prisoner’s cell to hanging him on the scaffold sometimes took as little as 12 seconds,” he said. “He entered the cell through a side door, took the prisoner by surprise and led him to the gallows as quickly as possible.”
Bradbury
said reading Pierrepoint’s autobiography helped him understand the psychology
of the hangman character. “In his mind, it was the court that was hanging the
criminal, not the executioner,” he said.
To
write the play, Bradbury said McDonagh did a lot of research and included many true
elements into the script. For instance, the name of the hangman, Harry Wade, is
an amalgamation of the names of two actual hangmen, Harry Allen and Stephen
Wade.
A
Manchester-born British actor who spent four seasons at Canada’s Stratford
Festival and 17 more at the Shaw Festival, Bradbury recently finished a lengthy
run in “The Beatles: LOVE” with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas.
Named
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Performer of the Year in 2010 for his
performance as Will Mossop in the play, Hobson’s Choice, he has performed
regularly with both PICT and Kinetic Theatre, playing more than 15 roles since
2005. Last December, he played Watson and Lestrade in “A Sherlock Carol,” and
Kinetic produced his award-winning play about the death of Moliere, “The
Illustrious Invalid” in 2022.
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| Cameron Nickel to play Clegg in "Hangmen" Courtesy Photo |
Another actor in the cast, Cameron Nickel, who’s playing
the role of a local reporter named Clegg, also discovered that McDonagh did his
homework while writing the play.
“In
my own research many of the names that come up in the course of conversation
between Harry Wade and Clegg, like Derek Bentley, Timothy Evans, Ruth Ellis,
and even James Henessey (an allusion to historical figure James Hanratty) were
real people whose controversial executions actually contributed to the
abolition of hanging in England,” Nickel said.
“For
me, while I was both aware of and a fan of McDonagh’s signature twisted comic
style, I was very surprised, after doing my prep work on the script and
beginning the rehearsal process, that he was effectively able to balance in the
script his own style with real, grounded history. It really made me appreciate
the play all the more.”
According
to Paul, the play is germane in the modern age, and arguments about capital
punishment are still relevant today.
“The
play is a tragicomedy,” he said. “It points you in the direction of a darker
side of society we usually don’t want to recognize. While the audience will get
the dark message, they’ll also laugh at the same time and, perhaps, think about
the subject in a new way.”
Described
as “Brilliantly Macabre” by English critic Michael Coveney and “rip-roaringly
hilarious yet profoundly horrific” by the New York Times (Critic’s Pick),
Martin McDonagh’s rollicking comedy about capital punishment is a perfect fit
for our times.
“The
Hangmen,” a Kinetic Theatre Company production, is at the Carnegie Stage, 25 W.
Main Street in Carnegie, August 7 through 24. For tickets, visit kinetic.showclix.com, phone
412-225-9145 or visit kinetictheatre.org.
More about Cameron Nickel:
Cameron Nickel
is a native Pittsburgh actor, writer, director, and educator who recently
returned to his hometown after receiving an MFA in Theatre Performance &
Pedagogy from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. Cameron’s regional credits include: Quantum
Theatre’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Uli); Virginia Repertory Theater’s Miss
Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley (Bingley), City Theater Company’s Miss Bennet:
Christmas at Pemberley (u/s Arthur, Darcy, Bingley), Curse of the Starving
Class (Wesley), 24th Annual Young Playwright’s Festival (Various); PICT’s What
Do I Wear Gala (Dorimant, Richard II), Isle of Noises (Ariel), Kinetic
Theatre’s Hangmen (Clegg), A Life in the Theatre (The SM, u/s John).
Additional
Pittsburgh performance credits include: South Park Theater’s A Rock Sails By,
Seasonal Allergies, Alone Together; Little Lake Theatre’s Our Town, A Little
Hotel on the Side; Poor Yorick’s Players’ Love’s Labour’s Lost (Berowne), and
Food For Groundlings’ audio productions of Richard III (Clarence) and Hamlet
(Horatio). Cameron also received his
B.A. Theatre Performance from Seton Hill University, where he performed in a
wide variety of mainstage productions including Medea (Jason), The Drowsy Chaperone
(Man in Chair), The Rivals (Faulkland), Clybourne Park (Karl/Steve), The Hollow
(Edward Angkatell), and Company (Peter).
Cameron is also a Designated Meisner Teacher with certification through
The Meisner Institute.
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