From the devilishly inspired mind of Martin McDonagh—Academy Award®–winning writer of THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI—comes HANGMEN, a killer comedy nominated for 5 Tony Awards® including Best Play. What’s Britain’s second-most famous executioner to do now that hanging has been abolished?
Drink, of course. But when a cub reporter and a mysterious stranger turn up at his pub, everything hangs in the balance. HANGMEN marks McDonagh’s seventh play on Broadway, following his Tony-nominated productions of THE PILLOWMAN and THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE. Winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Play and Set Design, HANGMEN plays a strictly limited engagement at the Golden Theatre after multiple sold-out engagements in London and Off-Broadway’s Atlantic Theatre Company.
Is he a relative of someone Harry hanged looking for revenge? A reporter looking for a story? A devil come to take Harry's soul? All three of those options and plenty more beside remain on the table throughout this play and I'll keep shut on the truth, finally revealed in a way that will, I swear, turn you into the sort of goop you typically find on the head of a foaming pint of bitter.
Death is an ever-present character too, or at least the specter that (no pun) hangs over it all. That's par for the course with McDonagh, though the cheerful brutality of his work can sometimes betray a certain emptiness at the core; what are the stakes, when even a fatal miscarriage of justice is played for punchlines? Hangmen suffers from some of that dissonance, and its longer, talkier interludes serve more as amiable time fillers than story engine. But there's real pathos in between the lines and endless pints of lager - even maybe a little heart.
2015 | West End |
Original West End Production West End |
2018 | Off-Broadway |
Atlantic Theater Company US Premiere Off-Broadway |
2022 | Broadway |
Broadway Premiere Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2022 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Direction of a Play | Matthew Dunster |
2022 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Play | Hangmen |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Play | Joshua Carr |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play | Alfie Allen |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play | David Threlfall |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Hangmen |
2022 | Tony Awards | Best Scenic Design of a Play | Anna Fleischle |
2021 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Awards | Gaby French |
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