Kinetic Theatre Delivers First U.S. Regional Production of Martin McDonagh’s Twisty Thriller
By SHARON EBERSON
Tell me if you’ve heard this one: A stranger walks into a pub …
Martin McDonagh wrote a doozy of a role when he created Hangmen’s Mooney, the walking, talking plot device who enters a pub in Northern England, emanating a persona that may just as well be a neon sign that says “stranger danger.”
He talks up a storm, does Mooney, and with every word becomes more of a sinister presence in the life of Harry Wade, one of the last hangmen in the UK, and proud of it.
In the United States regional premiere of Hangmen by Kinetic Theatre, Mooney is played by the youthful Charlie Kennedy, a recent Point Park graduate. He embodies the cocky-creepy character – although Mooney notes that he prefers “menacing” to creepy.
Mooney, a Londoner, walks into the establishment owned by Harry and Alice Wade (the one-two acting punch of Simon Bradbury and Sheila McKenna), immediately making his presence felt among the regulars. Harry is suspicious of anyone who interrupts him in his domain. In Cheers-like fashion, four barflies occupy the same stools, each giving Harry his due as he sets pint after pint before them.
Before we get to the pub, however, the play opens with the frightening scene of one among Harry’s 233 executions: a man named Hennessey, who swears his innocence and blames the miscarriage of justice on Harry and his meek, stuttering assistant, Syd (James FitzGerald).
Harry dismisses the protests as fear. When the condemned man cries, “I’m getting hung by nincompoops!,” Harry corrects him. The word is hanged, says the hangman.
That’s the McDonagh sense of gallows humor, inevitable and dark as night, and delivered with spot-on timing by a top-notch cast.
After the viscerally staged hanging, we are propelled two years into the future, circa 1963, with the death penalty in the UK facing abolition, and Harry and the pub’s barflies giving an eager young journalist (Cameron Nickel) a hard time. Harry is a humble-bragger who likes “to keep my own counsel” about life as an executioner, but he finally relents. His interview becomes smalltown front-page news that reverberates, with consequences.
As Harry, Bradbury is made for the role, as he has fit into so many roles we’ve seen him inhabit, alongside collaborator and director Andrew Paul. Bradbury’s Harry enjoys his soap-box position among the pub regulars, played by Arjun Kumar, Gregory Johnstone, John Reilly and Darren Eliker, as Inspector Fry, who would seem to be more interested in his beer than his police duties.
of Darren Eliker’s Inspector Fry. (Image: Rocky Raco)
A running joke is Kumar’s Charlie repeating whatever’s said for Reilly’s Arthur, who has no filter when it is his turn to speak. Johnstone’s Bill admires Harry’s work, because, “They get what they deserve,” although Harry argues his purpose, as “a servant of the crown,” is not to question convictions and to provide death with dignity.
However, the one case that keeps coming up is that of Hennessey, and here Harry contradicts himself. He has scrutinized the evidence, he says, and feels assured of the dead man’s guilt.
Harry, it would seem, is ready to settle into the comfortable life he has built with his wife and 15-year-old daughter, Shirley (Sara Joyce Reynolds), described intermittently as moody, mopey and shy.
Kennedy’s Mooney turns on a smarmy charm and cracks away at Shirley’s defenses. When the teenager disappears, with Mooney also absent for a time, conclusions are drawn that have dire consequences.
As Harry and company wait, worry and wonder, into their midst, like a lightning bolt of ill will, comes the No. 1 hangman in England, Albert Pierrepoint (David Whalen).
Using the name of the real-life executioner, known for hanging some of England’s most notorious murderers and more than 200 convicted Nazi war criminals, must spark deep resonances in the UK. Here, where Pierrepoint is less known, he might be seen as egocentric, although it’s apparently earned. Whalen’s Pierrepoint comes in hot and angry about Harry’s claims in the newspaper interview, and brings the man down more than a few pegs.
All the while, Shirley’s disappearance is weighing heavily on her parents. When Mooney reappears without the girl in tow, the moral and ethical issues surrounding the death penalty that have been surging throughout the story reach a fever pitch.
The intimate Carnegie Stage venue was particularly crowded on opening night Friday, with some sightlines requiring the stretch of the neck, a necessity to catch every facial expression and nuance of the cast of 11, each speaking with some degree of English accents.
Audience members in the front row of the thrust space might have felt they could order a pint from the tap of the working bar. The tight, rectangular set by Johnmichael Bohach includes steps to a second floor and accommodates the largest Kinetic cast since the pandemic, Paul pointed out in a preshow speech.
What lingers, however, is a centerstage scene between FitzGerald’s Syd and Kennedy’s Mooney, that appear to make motivations less murky – although with Mooney, nothing is ever as it seems.
Best to just lean in and appreciate a statesman of Pittsburgh acting and an up-and-comer, sharing an intense confrontation. There are no easy answers in this tantalizingly dark thriller, which Kinetic has given exciting new life, in a terrific production that reaches beyond England and New York, to Main Street, USA.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
The Pittsburgh and U.S. regional premiere of Hangmen by Kinetic Theatre runs through August 24, 2025, at Carnegie Stage, 25 West Main Street, Carnegie. Tickets: Visit https://www.kinetictheatre.org/ .
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