Jordan - Justice in the Plays and Films of Martin McDonagh

Eamonn Jordan

Justice in the Plays and Films of Martin McDonagh

Eamonn Jordan

School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

ISBN 978-3-030-30452-2 e-ISBN 978-3-030-30453-9

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30453-9

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Acknowledgements

This has been a great project to work on. Thanks for all the wonderful support I received from the Palgrave team, including Ellie Freedman, Emily Wood and Lina Aboujieb. Thanks to colleagues in the School of English, Drama and Film, University College Dublin and the College of Arts and Humanities granting of Research Leave that allowed me the time to finish this project. As this is another attempt to engage with the work of Martin McDonagh, I have to thank all those who have inputted on my previous attempts, contributors and my co-editor, Lilian Chambers onThe Theatre of Martin McDonagh: A World of Savage Storiesand assistance and advice I received from so many in preparation of my earlier monographFrom Leenane to LA: The Theatre and Films of Martin McDonagh.

Thanks to the numerous conference and research seminar organisers that allowed me to test ideas, often for the first time in public. My Third-Year module on McDonaghs work has always been a particular joy to teach; so thanks to all those students over the years. To each and every M.A. and Ph.D. student I have worked with, I would like to thank, particularly those who research in the area of Irish and Contemporary Theatre and performance. I have learned much from your responses about the writings of McDonagh.

Thanks to the theatre and film companies that have and will keep producing the work of McDonagh. Thanks to Fiona Daly and Rhona Trench who read sections of this work. Thanks to Dermott Barrett for his assistance in the proofing of this manuscript.

Finally, to Marian, Roisin, and Ian, whose support and encouragement I constantly rely on. My debt and my gratitude to all three of you is inestimable.

Abbreviations

Title	Abbreviations	Internal referencing
A Behanding in Spokane	Spokane	S
A Skull in Connemara	Skull	SC
A Very Very Very Dark Matter	Dark Matter	DM
Hangmen	Hangmen	H
In Bruges	Bruges	IB
Seven Psychopaths	Psychopaths	SP
Six Shooter	Shooter	SS
The Beauty Queen of Leenane	Beauty Queen	BQ
The Lieutenant of Inishmore	Inishmore	I
The Lonesome West	Lonesome	LW
The Pillowman	Pillowman	P
Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri	Billboards	B

Contents

This chapter introduces Martin McDonaghs inclination to place unconventional characters in situations of intense extremity, often for comic effect. The chapter then signals the wide range of critical perspectives already offered by commentators in relation to McDonaghs body of work. Finally, the chapter starts to consider how Amartya Sens reflections, amongst others, on the idea of justice offer an appropriate frame to tease out and interrogate the various manifestations of criminal justice in McDonaghs writings.

Born in London on 26 March 1970 to Irish parents, Martin Faranan McDonagh is one of the most performed playwrights in the world today. The fact that the plays are so regularly revived in multiple contexts across the globe from Dublin to Dubai, from London to Perm (a Russian city that hosted two international festivals dedicated to McDonaghs work), speaks to the relevance and importance of his writing. In the world of film, as writer/director, McDonagh has had notable successes with his highly regarded three full-length films, and one film short. It is less important to regard him as an Irish, English, London-Irish or Anglo-Irish writer, as he is a cosmopolitan writer, whose identity has been shaped by post-colonial, globalised and diasporic factors . ( See Jordan [, 17] on McDonaghs background, and Brah, 1996 on the impact of poly-locationality on diasporic populations.)

Martin McDonaghs writing for stage and screen is widely noted for its taboo transgressions, moral ambiguities and various inflammatory extravagances, particularly its association with excesses and extremes of violence. Aspects of McDonaghs dramaturgical intent are especially evident in the coarse, twisted and contradictory dispositions of characters who are noted for their irritating fixations, petty and irrational obsessions, vindictive sentiments, and ridiculous self-justifications. They are self-assured, reinforced by their own self-deceptions and self-belief, unafraid of their own myths, never unnerved by knock-backs, failures or uncomplimentary feedback from others.