Wabash College presents: The Pillowman

First of all, I would like to congratulate all of the actors/actresses and people who worked on this semester's production of The Pillowman. This was the best performance I have seen so far over the course of my 3 years here at Wabash.

With that being said, the thing that stood out to me about The Pillowman was actually the audience. The actual plot of the story is pretty saddening, depressing, and gruesome. However, the "dark comedy" as it was advertised, truly displayed itself. Despite the intense plot, I was drawn into the sarcasm of the character Tupolski. Played by Matt Goodrich, I thought this character was actually hilarious. However, on more than one occasion, I found myself wondering how the audience could possibly be laughing at such a morbid play. It really made me think about how our human nature uses humor to cover up any fears we may have. Sometimes, despite how serious something may be, we can just "laugh it off". This is usually done when we as humans, are put into an uncomfortable situation. It made me question as to whether or not the intentions of a certain line or phrase were to actually evoke laughter from the audience, or if it was just the audiences' way of hiding their discomfort.