The Pillowman – Footnotes

(1) Craig's slender form even puts an emphasis on this vulnerable look, with the rather wide clothes that make him truly look like some poor writer in a state that doesn't care much about its writers or other artists.

(2) Craig sitting on the chair in bare feet gave me a wonderful opportunity to observe a little habit of his. He often flexed his toes during the play which made me wonder if he was completely unaware of this, if maybe him wiggling his toes was a sign of tension, stress, or concentration… or maybe just cold feet?

(3) Michael really grabbed Craig brutally, so that Craig's face flushed immediately, his veins were visible and he started sweating. I often wondered how much of the agonized expression on his face was real. They were both struggling earnestly which added a lot to the reality of the violent scene and sometimes made me wonder what would happen if Michael would accidentally let go of Craig.

(4) Craig took his time to slowly and carefully scan the audience, to make sure to look for a couple of seconds at as many people as possible, thus involving them personally in Katurian's fate.

(5) I had a chance to talk to Bonnie, who played the mother, and I asked her whether each of the actors had their own perception and interpretation of the play or whether the director was rather strict about what he wanted to convey and therefore gave them strict guidelines as to what the meaning of each scene and interaction was. She said that they were all constantly discussing the play, coming up with new ideas about the motivations and reasons for the protagonists to act as they did and that it was still very interesting to them. I couldn't help but notice what a beautiful beautiful woman she was. Wow.

(6) It was easy to see that Craig had his secret pleasure with this scene and especially with the audience's reaction. He never even flinched at the loud music and the corpse's sudden movement, but his slightly evil smile was genuine. He enjoyed making everybody jump in their seats.

(7) Here, sometimes Craig put more emphasis on the anger, sometimes more on the sadness. When in some plays, he never lost physical contact to Gareth, in others he clearly distanced himself from him. In some plays he shouted and yelled at Gareth in a way that made one flinch in the front row, in other plays he mostly just cried desperately.

(8) Gareth and Craig often played rather freely, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, sometimes Craig being on the left side, but mostly on the right side when leaning on the column. They acted very naturally together and never stumbled over the little liberties in playing they took. About halfway through the playing time of the Pillowman we could talk to Michael Hurst after a show and he said that we might have noticed that they started changing things a little bit, their facial expressions, the way he put out his cigarette, where they stood, small things like that. He said they did it cause now they were comfortable with the play and their texts and they wanted to keep the play 'alive'. Michael also said that they felt the connection with the audience and the interaction with them very strongly and that his would be very different each night as well and that there was an influence that worked both ways.

(9) I got a chance to talk to Gareth after a show and asked him if he actually ever had banged his head on the floor and he said, no, luckily not, he really was just slamming his hands on the floor to make it look and sound violent and real but that Craig would often come and ask "Are you okay?" worrying that he had actually hurt him.

(10) There was one precious moment when the girl blessed the people in the audience making big signs of the cross. She looked directly at me one night while making the sign when I sat in the front row and I just couldn't help grinning broadly, having trouble to keep from laughing out loud at her serious blessing of me. I saw then that the girl's eyes were sparkling and that she was smiling behind her beard as well. It was just too delightful.

(11) People sometimes laughed in the most impossible moments. Not only at this moment when the father is nailing the girl to the cross, but then, too. Craig said that the audience in New Zealand mostly wanted light entertainment, nothing challenging like this play, so this might explain the laughter as people try to desperately see the funny side in something that is not even remotely funny. I suppose they were trying to reassure themselves, to cover up their discomfort and shock. Also quite generally, the audience changed drastically from one play to the other. Sometimes they were very quiet, sometimes noisy, eating chips during the show, laughing and talking as if there was nobody else. I found this rather disrespectful and was glad whenever I could sit far in front or when luckily it was a quiet audience that night.

(12) One single time they must've held the little tube with the blood a little awkwardly as it sprayed right into the audience, luckily narrowly missing a person in the front row. But quite often, when Oliver nailed her feet to the cross, he sprayed the blood all across the stage and straight at Craig. Not a problem, since he was bloody anyway, and Craig usually did not even flinch, only once he closed his eyes quickly when the blood hit him right under his right eye.

(13) These moments were made all the more realistic – not only in this particular discussion but also earlier on in the play – by Michael sometimes involuntarily spitting at Craig when he shouted at him. At this close distance and in this volume it was sure that Craig would flinch and turn away slightly.

(14) The electrodes must have hurt quite a bit as Craig didn't have them on the same fingers each night. Also, sometimes he discreetly pressed his fingers together just so that he could open one of the electrodes a tiny bit to relieve the pressure when it hurt too much. After all, he had to kneel in this position for quite a long time, often having his hands held out in front of him in an uncomfortable way, often constrained by the tangled wires that led to the battery and also he had to be careful not to let Michael trip over the wires when they were short. But he did a good job at keeping all these things very unobtrusively under control.

(15) Though this story is subtly funny in many places, I often disliked how Jonathan really overdid it with the comedy. Too many big gestures and interaction with the audience for my taste. Though after a couple of shows that wasn't as bad anymore, the director probably made a remark? I was glad to see that he was acting more seriously again because this is exactly what makes this story so strong, that the funny remarks are said dead serious, leaving the audience in a state between the urge to laugh and a state of shock, uncertain how to react.

(16) After that you could easily see the imprints of the electrodes on Craig's fingers.

(17) Halfway through the play time of The Pillowman Craig got the sniffles and so it was difficult and exhausting for him to be on stage. Especially when he had to sit still for a long time, like here, he sometimes had no choice other than to wipe his nose with his hand quickly. He couldn't really actually pull a hanky out of his pocket and sneeze. This was also difficult when he was talking to the audience directly, sniffling or coughing there for relief would've been a complete no-no. So what to do? Keep a straight face and ignore the runny nose. The poor one. Luckily this only lasted for a couple of days before he was better again.

(18) Sometimes I feared for Jonathan's health when he got all worked up in the play and could hardly breathe anymore. He occasionally held his hand to his heart and I guess pretty much everyone in the audience held their breath, too, hoping he wouldn't have another heart attack. The length and intensity of the play itself were reason enough to fear for him as he had already suffered two or three heart attacks before. Luckily, nothing happened.

(19) This always provoked quite a murmur in the audience since nobody really knew what to expect, was this part of the play? What was to come?

(20) Depending on his aim with the blood capsule, Craig sometimes bled all over his face, the blood running over his eyes, nose, down into his shirt and sometimes just the side of his head, his dark hair shone deeply red with blood.

(21) Right at the beginning of his final narration he says: "In the seven and three-quarter seconds he was given before he died, Katurian Katurian tried to compose a story…" This is where Craig sometimes stumbled and said 'poem' instead of 'story'. He had done so once before and when he sat down, looked into the audience and said this, he looked right at me when he wanted to say 'poem' again. So when he said: "…tried to compose a p…" my eyes got wide in shock and I sucked in my breath while he quickly corrected to 'story' and I couldn't help but grin in relief that he hadn't made the mistake again and since he saw my eyes go wide he was grinning, too. But that private magic little moment of understanding didn't hurt the end of the story since he's supposed to have this ghostly smile on his face anyway, only this one time it was a creepy grin instead.