Martin McDonaugh's New Play "A Behanding in Spokane" Deemed "Shameful and Vile" by Critic Hilton Als

Martin McDonagh's new play, "A Behanding in Spokane," panned by New Yorker magazine critic Hilton Als as "shameful and vile."

Christopher Walken, Sam Rockwell, Zoe Kazan, and Anthony Mackie in "A Behanding in Spokane."

Photograph: Sipa Press / Rex Features

Martin McDonagh, a controversial English-born Irish playwright, who has created headlines in Britain and Ireland with his works tinged with black humor, has landed on American shores with his latest work, "A Behanding in Spokane." Christopher Walken plays the lead role as a racist aging criminal searching for a severed hand that he lost many years ago. He then he meets a couple of con artists in a dingy hotel room who tell him they have the appendage. The play has sparked some controversy in the United States as Hilton Als, the New Yorker's theater critic, took umbrage with the play and said it was overtly racist.

I don’t know a single self-respecting black actor who wouldn’t feel shame and fury while sitting through Martin McDonagh’s new play, “A Behanding in Spokane” (directed by John Crowley, at the Gerald Schoenfeld). Nor do I know one who would have the luxury of turning the show down, once the inevitable tours and revivals get under way. The play is engineered for success, and McDonagh’s stereotypical view of black maleness is a significant part of that engineering. Still, one wonders how compromised the thirty-one-year-old Anthony Mackie must feel, playing Toby, a black prole whose misadventures are central to this four-character show. Mackie recently attracted notice for his portrayal of a bomb-squad sergeant in Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq war movie “The Hurt Locker.” But even in that role he was drawing on a paradigm—Lou Gossett, Jr.,’s 1982 portrayal of a drill sergeant in “An Officer and a Gentleman.” The sad fact is that, in order to cross over, most black actors of Mackie’s generation must act black before they’re allowed to act human. Source:  The New Yorker

Well, I don't pay much attention to plays and it seems ironic that Hilton Als, who is black, is the only critic to offer up such a stinging review of the play. He also said “A Behanding” isn’t the least bit palatable; it’s vile, particularly in its repeated use of the word “nigger.” Other critics have been less scathing in their take on the play, such as Ben Brantley, who wrote in the New York Times, "He seems to have lost his hitherto unerring sense of direction in the busy, open country of the United States," while the USA Today called it: "...hardly McDonagh's most fully realized effort." I, too, find it vile and despicable when black actors feel they must take roles that denigrate their race to make a name for themselves in Hollywood and get more serious roles. It is a shame and I don't know if Hilton Als criticism of the play will change the minds of many people, but it's a valid observation about the actions of some black actors and actresses in Hollywood and on Broadway.