The Lieutenant Of Inishmore Analysis

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Black comedy discusses and integrates controversial and often taboo topics such as pain, loss, and grief providing a confronting and cathartic experience for the audience. Martin McDonagh’s ‘The Lieutenant of Inishmore’ is a play that humorously deals with the serious nature of the Irish struggle for independence. It juxtaposes the mundane with the extreme political violence, which is a common aspect of black comedy, presenting an issue in a new perspective. The act of pointless violence presented through characterisation, sharp dialogue and the symbol of the cat, is a strong mechanism for laughter. Similarly Neil Labute’s ‘The Shape of Things’ presents manipulation, superficiality and the nature of art in a humorous way. ‘The Shape of Things’ …show more content…

‘The Lieutenant of Inishmore’ contrasts the physically violent, with the mundane activity of daily life. This was demonstrated to me when we viewed a short clip of a production of scene two online in class. It showed James suspended upside down “from the ceiling with his feet bare and bloody”, illuminated by a dim spotlight. This had a great visual effect as it placed the violence centre stage, which contrasted to the interruption of Padraic’s father on the telephone, “Will you hold on a minute there James?…it’s me Dad” to which Padraic addresses him “Don’t be calling me a work daddy… was it important now?”. The sudden ringing of Padraic’s phone call was met with laughter from the class in our workshopping as it was unexpected and interrupted the violent absurdism and reintroduced …show more content…

Evelyn remains a disconnected personality and expresses little emotion throughout her presentation of Adam to which she calls a “sculpture”, a “base material” , and “my creation” which were confronting terms which shocked the audience as they too were manipulated by Evelyn and were not expecting this conclusion, for their love to be an experiment for artistic purposes because “art must be created. Whatever the cost”. This scene is especially confronting to the audience and Adam because Labute structured the play to lull the audience to a sense of belief and security in the relationships only to cause them pain and discomfort when the truth is revealed. This truth makes moments which were previously humorous into sinister lines such as “What’d she do, give you a haircut and a blow job and now you’re her puppy?!” the audience develops a hatred towards Evelyn for her lack of remorse as she justifies her action as “following in a long tradition of artists who believe that there is no such concept as religion or government… only

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