The Cripple of Inishmaan

Martin McDonagh’s “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” presented by the Atlantic Theater Company, revolves around the plight of a physically challenged orphan called “Cripple Billy” (a flawless Aaron Monaghan) who attempts to escape his suffocating existence in Inishmaan by following his dreams to the neighboring Inishmore, where Hollywood filmmaker Robert Flaherty has come to shoot his movie “The Man of Aran” on the little Irish island in 1934. But the tabloid plot is merely a foil for playwright McDonagh (who just in the past few years – like Quentin Tarantino did for film in the early nineties – has utilized a sense of anything-can-happen, dangerous adventure to single-handedly punch new life into the great white way with “The Pillowman” and “The Lieutenant of Inishmore”) to explore the collective mirror of his homeland itself.

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