The Pillowman

The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh is a play about Katurian, a fiction writer who lives and works in a police state. As his stories are similar to several murders, he’s interrogated by the police. In 2004, McDonagh received an Olivier Award in the Best New Play category, a New York Drama Critics’ Award for Best New Foreign Play, as well as two Tony Awards. It premiered in 2003 at the Cottesloe Theatre in London. The Pillowman falls into the sub-genre of black comedy.

In the first act, Katurian is being interrogated by Ariel and Tupolski. Initially, Katurian thinks they’re investigating him because of suspicions that he’s using his fiction to spread political messages speaking out against the totalitarian dictatorship. Ariel leaves the room, and Katurian hears screaming from the other side of the wall. When Ariel returns, hand covered in blood, Ariel says that Michal has confessed to murdering three children—with Katurian. He denies it, reminding his interrogators that while his stories are gruesome, it’s his job as a storyteller to tell a story; this is not indicative of his being a murderer—even though the details of two of the murders match two of his stories, “The Little Apple Men” and “The Tale of the Town on the River.”

Katurian used to write happy stories, but after he heard someone being tortured at night, his stories took a disturbing turn. He receives a message that for the last seven years, he’s been subjected to his brother’s torture to force him to become a better writer. He discovers his parents are playing a prank on him, but years later finds his brother’s remains in the room next to his, along with a beautifully written story which Katurian destroys. He then reveals to the audience—not Ariel and Tupolski—that what he really found was his brother, Michal, disabled. He killed his parents and took over as his brother’s caretaker.



As act 2 begins, Katurian and Michal are locked up together. Katurian tells Michal that he was tortured; Michal tells Katurian that he simply cooperated with Ariel and screamed on cue—he was never physically harmed. Katurian tells Michal the story of “The Pillowman,” a man who is made of pillows and convinces children to commit suicide to save them living through something awful. Michal confesses to Katurian that he killed the three children—he felt Katurian told him to do it through his fiction. Katurian smothers Michal to save him from the agony of being executed. Katurian tells Ariel and Tupolski that he’ll confess so long as they spare his fiction.

He tells them the story of “The Little Jesus,” one of his stories about a girl whose parents are killed, so she goes to live with a foster family. Her foster parents abuse her, and because she’s convinced that she is Jesus, they torture and crucify her. They bury her with the idea that she’ll rise again in three days, as Jesus is believed to have done, but she doesn’t.

Act 3 finds Katurian back in the interrogation room with Ariel and Tupolski. He writes out his confession, adding in the murders of his parents and Michal. Ariel gets ready to torture Katurian with an electric battery, explaining his loathing for child-murderers. Katurian surmises that Ariel’s father must have raped him and that Ariel later murdered his father. Before Ariel can torture Katurian, Tupolski interrupts to question the writer. Believing that the third child might still be alive, Ariel leaves to find her. Tupolski tells Katurian that he sees himself as a wise man, protecting the innocent even though they never see him.



Ariel returns with the girl, who is alive. It turns out that Michal was inspired by a different story of Katurian’s, called “The Little Green Pig,” and so was not tortured and crucified. Ariel and Tupolski determine that Katurian doesn’t know enough about the murdered children, so he can’t be guilty. They decide to execute him anyway though, for killing Michal and their parents. Ariel is about to burn Katurian’s stories, but Katurian tells one more about how Michal suffered seven years of torture so that Katurian could be a better storyteller. Katurian is shot, and Ariel decides not to burn his fiction.

The play was inspired by McDonagh’s habit of rewriting fairy tales, which led him to discover that there was something dark about them. McDonagh is an Irish playwright. In addition to awards for individual works like The Pillowman, McDonagh won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film and a Golden Globe for best screenplay. Other notable works written by McDonagh include Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri; The Beauty Queen of Leenane; In Bruges; Hangmen; and Seven Psychopaths.