The Pillowman

The Pillowman is a play by Martin McDonagh. A drama, it tells the tale of Katurian, a fiction writer living in a police state who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories, and their similarities to a number of bizarre incidents occurring in his town.

The play had its world premiere on November 13, 2003 at the Royal National Theatre, starring David Tennant as Katurian, the play's primary focus, Jim Broadbent as Tupolski his lead interrogator, Nigel Lindsay as Ariel, and Adam Godley as Michal. It received the 2004 Olivier Award and an Evening Standard Award nomination for Best New Play. It was directed by John Crowley.

Katurian is being interviewed; Some of the short stories he wrote are similar to some bizarre child murders that are happening in the town. Katurian of course denies these allegations, stating that although his stories are gruesome it is the job of a storyteller to tell a story. After being tortured Katurian is thrown into a room with his mentally handicapped brother Michal. Michal says that he was the one who killed the children, and was only doing what was in the stories because “that is what his brother wanted him to do”. Katurian doesn’t want his brother to be executed for something that he wasn’t fully cognizant about so Katurian smothers his brother with a pillow. Katurian then later confesses to the murders of the three children, making a deal with Tupolski and Ariel that if he did they would not destroy his stories. When the police find the crime scenes they find that his description of them do not match the crime scenes at all. They know that Katurian wasn’t the murderer, but he is executed anyway for the murder of his parents and Michal.

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