The Savior Wears a Shroud

You’d expect a play titled The Pillowman to involve a terrifying character who inflicts nightmares upon a poor victim’s sleeping mind. On the contrary, the eponymous entity’s purpose is to save children from the nightmares of their real lives. Is this an act of self-righteousness or the work of a...

By John Zur

July 15, 2010

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You’d expect a play titled The Pillowman to involve a terrifying character who inflicts nightmares upon a poor victim’s sleeping mind. On the contrary, the eponymous entity’s purpose is to save children from the nightmares of their real lives. Is this an act of self-righteousness or the work of a true savior? And who is the Pillowman? Is it the protagonist, Katurian, the writer whose gruesome short stories resemble real-life crimes against children? Or is it his brother, Michal, whose childhood could have benefited from the intervention of such an antihero? Pillowman director Arnaldo Carmouze explains, “Ultimately, as Katurian says in the play, ‘The first duty of a storyteller is to tell a story.’ This is a hell of a story.” Staged through August 8, there’ll be performances Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. as well as Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m. at the Little Stage Theater.
Fri., July 23, 8 p.m., 2010

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