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By Denise Foley

Kafka with laughs?

That’s how one theater critic described "The Pillowman," the 2005 Tony-award-winning play by Martin McDonagh now running at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia.

Michael Pemberton as Ariel, Lewis J. Stadlen as Tupolski

The plot—a writer in an unnamed police state finds himself under investigation when several children in his neighborhood are found murdered in the horrifying ways he describes in his short stories—suggests that this work by the London-born Irish playwright would be more chilling than comical. "It's all in the writing and execution, so to speak," says producer-director Jiri Zizka. "McDonagh's sense of humor is such that he can write about something like that and make it funny. So much of theater is just 'nice.' McDonagh is the opposite of nice. He's provocative."

In fact, McDonagh, whose previous plays such as "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" and "The Cripple of Inishmaan" are set in the west of Ireland, is considered one of the "bad boys" of theater. A British critic once suggested that his work resembled a collaboration between famed Irish playwright J.M. Synge and American director Quentin Tarantino, whose films contain more blood and body parts than a battlefield hospital. A previous work, "The Lieutenant of Inishmore," pokes fun at terrorism—in this case, a thinly veiled IRA-like organization. The hero is a psychopathic cat-loving Irish terrorist who imagines "an Ireland free for cats to roam about without fear." A New York Times critic referred to it as both gleeful and gruesome.

Don't be surprised if you can't stop talking—or arguing—about the play long after the final curtain goes down. This week, the Wilma house manager tested the temperature of preview audiences by interviewing patrons as they exited the theater. “Most people found it funny, but a few were put out,” Zizka says. “It can get offensive, depending on your sense of humor.”

He acknowledged that the shootings of 10 young Amish schoolgirls this week could color audience reaction. “The newspaper headlines caught up with us unfortunately. It’s terrible news. But I think people will see this play as independent from it,” he says.

In reality, it’s less a play about child killings than it is about storytelling. “In the course of the action of play, he tells seven stories, so storytelling very much the main theme of this play,” Zizka says. “It’s about theater, and how you tell a story on stage, and about why a writer wants to provoke the audience.”

Though the setting of “The Pillowman” is closer to eastern Europe than County Clare, the director says it has an Irish sensibility. “I see McDonagh coming out of Irish theater, where language and good story are most important and the humor is irreverent.”

If your own sense of humor runs to “wickedly funny” with the emphasis on both, “The Pillowman” is a must-see. Just one thing: Leave the kids at home.