Comments on: Pillowman First Night: The Season Begins http://blog.steppenwolf.org/2006/09/15/pillowman-first-night-the-season-begins/ Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:38:03 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0 by: Tanya Levshina http://blog.steppenwolf.org/2006/09/15/pillowman-first-night-the-season-begins/#comment-153 Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:56:40 +0000 http://blog.steppenwolf.org/2006/09/15/pillowman-first-night-the-season-begins/#comment-153 My husband and I are Steppenwolf patrons for more then 10 years but for the first time two weeks ago we have decided to stay for discussion of The Pillowman. It was pretty interesting discussion but nobody has mentioned the interpretation of the play that seemed the most apparent to me. Yesterday we attended “the 31st-season kick-off “ celebration and Martha Lavey has mentioned about existence of the Stppenwolf ‘s blog. This information was nicely coincided with my sleepless night, so I decided to share my interpretation of the play with fellow bloggers. The story of the Pillowman: Everything that we saw on stage is really happening in the mind of one man - Katurian. He is a writer, an artist whose imagination allows him to go beyond the limit the “normal” person would ever want to go or have ability to go. His painful childhood recollection and his sick imaginary brother are also products of his imagination. He is remembering his parents as a torturers, but actually they have been a ordinary people who have to deal with unordinary, vulnerable child, whom they desperately wanted to convert to a “pink” piggy. In his imagination the break with his parents is equal to the murder, and he is blaming himself for that but on the other hand he finds justification because he was saving his brother = his uniqueness, his vision of the world. The Policemen are actually representing the outside world. Katurian is desperate to understand it and to some extend fit but is falling most of time. In the rare occasions he can see the connection when his stories strike a cord with some experiences the other people had (lost of child, tremulous relationship with a parent) . The totalitarian regime presented in the play is needed to show us that for Katurian the real world is closed, he does not have access to it and can not influence it, and everything that is happening is beyond his control. His only dream that he will be accepted in the future (his dream to save his work for 50 years). The “Green piggy” tale is a dream of the self-assertion, it allows him to remain himself, and preserve his oddities - his pain, and his “sick” imagination because this is a will of God/Nature. The dream of the Pillowman is a dream of freedom from the torture within. My husband and I are Steppenwolf patrons for more then 10 years but for the first time two weeks ago we have decided to stay for discussion of The Pillowman. It was pretty interesting discussion but nobody has mentioned the interpretation of the play that seemed the most apparent to me. Yesterday we attended “the 31st-season kick-off “ celebration and Martha Lavey has mentioned about existence of the Stppenwolf ‘s blog. This information was nicely coincided with my sleepless night, so I decided to share my interpretation of the play with fellow bloggers.

The story of the Pillowman:

Everything that we saw on stage is really happening in the mind of one man - Katurian. He is a writer, an artist whose imagination allows him to go beyond the limit the “normal” person would ever want to go or have ability to go.
His painful childhood recollection and his sick imaginary brother are also products of his imagination. He is remembering his parents as a torturers, but actually they have been a ordinary people who have to deal with unordinary, vulnerable child, whom they desperately wanted to convert to a “pink” piggy. In his imagination the break with his parents is equal to the murder, and he is blaming himself for that but on the other hand he finds justification because he was saving his brother = his uniqueness, his vision of the world.

The Policemen are actually representing the outside world. Katurian is desperate to understand it and to some extend fit but is falling most of time. In the rare occasions he can see the connection when his stories strike a cord with some experiences the other people had (lost of child, tremulous relationship with a parent) . The totalitarian regime presented in the play is needed to show us that for Katurian the real world is closed, he does not have access to it and can not influence it, and everything that is happening is beyond his control. His only dream that he will be accepted in the future (his dream to save his work for 50 years).

The “Green piggy” tale is a dream of the self-assertion, it allows him to remain himself, and preserve his oddities - his pain, and his “sick” imagination because this is a will of God/Nature.
The dream of the Pillowman is a dream of freedom from the torture within.

]]> by: Charles Niblick http://blog.steppenwolf.org/2006/09/15/pillowman-first-night-the-season-begins/#comment-141 Tue, 10 Oct 2006 13:17:17 +0000 http://blog.steppenwolf.org/2006/09/15/pillowman-first-night-the-season-begins/#comment-141 I think that the play is a very prophetic statement of lament for the absence of any shared narrative. Everyone has a story in the play, they intersect but do not connect. I think that the playwright is deeply saddened, consciously, not likely, by the absence of any story that transcends and "holds" the individual narrative. All of the work of meaning in this play is singular and totally up to the individual with the exception of the "wounded" brother who is held up by the younger son. I see a very deep recognotion of the Christocentric sel sacrificing love in Katurian. The desire for the stories to survive comes not from his ego but his soul. I think that the play is a very prophetic statement of lament for the absence of any shared narrative. Everyone has a story in the play, they intersect but do not connect. I think that the playwright is deeply saddened, consciously, not likely, by the absence of any story that transcends and “holds” the individual narrative. All of the work of meaning in this play is singular and totally up to the individual with the exception of the “wounded” brother who is held up by the younger son. I see a very deep recognotion of the Christocentric sel sacrificing love in Katurian. The desire for the stories to survive comes not from his ego but his soul.

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