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Spinning

Nice Herald package in music today, with pieces on local hiphop mixtapes, the closing of Tower Records in Harvard Square and the question of whether anyone cares about brick-n-mortar record stories anymore.

No motive has been determined

Help me out here. Somebody please explain to me what I was supposed to take away from "The Pillowman." A few weeks back I went to the opening of the New Rep's version of the much-honored play by Martin McDonagh. It was a terrifically staged, excellently acted production. We left after two hours anyway, feeling as if we'd been beaten up by the playwright for no reason at all.

Since we skipped out, I wasn't going to write about it. But I couldn't get it out of my head. I got the play from the library so I could read the third act, which we'd missed - perhaps there was some redemptive kernel that would justify the brutality of the experience. I've Googled the New York Times review that made me want to see the show in the first place. But despite the fine New Rep performances (Jon Kuntz, Steven Barkheimer, Phillip Patrone, Bradley Thoennes) and the compellingly lurid staging (director Rick Lombardo, design John Malinowski) and the undeniable playwriting craft...

...I just don't get it.

This is three hours of emotional and physical sadism, its back-and-forth dialogue tinged with the blackest of black humor. Hey, I'm a lifetime newspaperman. I used to keep a bulletin board full of headlines like "Man Drowns in Baptism," so I get that the worst things that happen can also be hilarious. I have no problem with gory entertainment - I love George Romero movies. But ultimately I found this play repellent.

A synopsis: In an unnamed police state, a writer named Katurian (Kuntz) has been taken into custody by a Mutt-and-Jeff team of cops because his sheaf of 400 unpublished fables about horrific child murders resembles a recent set of real-life crimes. The cops are also holding Katurian's childlike, mentally disabled brother. Somebody's got to confess, or they're going to bring out the electrodes. But the brothers' backstory is more horrible than anything the cops could concoct. Can one brother protect the other? How far will the cops go? Who's gonna end up dead? What horrible crimes will we see reenacted?

I'm not Bill Bennett or Rush Limbaugh. I don't expect to be uplifted. I don't think art has to be pro-social to have value. But I do expect a grueling three-hour stage drama supposedly filled with big ideas to give me some kind of explanation for its existence. The ghastly child torture, electroshock, fratricide, matricide, patricide, infanticide and references to sexual abuse and other awful subjects that fill the pages of "The Pillowman" don't add up to anything except a grimly depressing evening with an occasional frisson of fear and disgust.

All four main characters are twisted beyond redemption, and despite oceans of allegedly profound dialogue, their actions seem predetermined and meaningless. I don't think McDonagh said anything here about freedom and responsibility, or the Kafkaesque realm of the interrogation room. He brings up the subject of how a brutal childhood can twist an adult life but doesn't go anywhere with it, except down a hall of mirrors of superficially clever twists and turns. He's endlessly inventive, but his violent creation is as dead-end as porn.

Granted McDonagh and the New Rep folks did a magnificent job of sticking these characters and scenes in my head - but as trauma, like that glimpse of a car crash victim you just can't forget. Even this would almost be acceptable if the play had something to say about the meaningless, random brutality of our modern existence. But not so much, no.

"No, what 'The Pillowman' is about, above all, is storytelling and the thrilling narrative potential of theater itself," wrote the Times reviewer. For this we need to see a young boy tortured with an electric drill and hear his screams? The reviewer also wrote, "Artistic merit, however, is irrelevant here. So, for that matter, is fiction's significance as social commentary, autobiographical revelation or metaphysical map. As Katurian exclaims in exasperation, 'I'm not trying to say anything at all.' "

So the whole point of the exhausting exercise was the playwright's power to make us want to know what happens next? Well, we left at halftime. I think all the critics have failed to recognize that this play's bloody rags are merely a new version of the emperor's new clothes.

Is that a grasshopper on the Stata Center?

From MIT: Japanese media artist Noboru Tsubaki, whose work has included robotic sculpture and large-scale outdoor installation addressing social and political issues, has been named the 2006 Ida Ely Rubin Artist-in-Residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). On Monday, October 30, at 7 p.m Tsubaki will give a public presentation titled, "Prosthetic Restoration of Your Soul: The Art of Noboru Tsusbaki" in MIT Room 32-141 of MIT's Stata Center (32 Vassar St., Cambridge). While in residence at MIT from October 30 through November 9 he will work with students and faculty in Media Arts & Sciences, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Sustainable Energy, and the Technology Culture Forum.  The October 30 event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited; no tickets or reservations are necessary. Info: (617) 253-2341.

My other bits

Regular readers have noticed postings slow in recent weeks as my current employer has me busy around the clock getting ready to launch our new sites from our new digs high above scenic Central Square. But I thought I'd point HubArts fans toward one of my efforts there, now that we're in a sort of soft launch phase. Check out our page on the Mass. Governor's Race. We're trying to bring together links to everything, from Globe page 1 stories to fringe blog posts to TV and radio commentaries, chosen for you by human beings rather than some Google algorithm.

Morning reads

Peter Gelzinis, who ought to know, says in his Herald column this morning that in "The Departed," Jack Nicholson has nailed the evil, if not the wardrobe, that animates Whitey Bulger. The Herald's front-page headline writer found a simpler way to say it: Heeeere's Whitey! ... And the Inside Track has the latest on the never-ending soap opera surrounding Massachusetts' effort to attract film production here. Maybe Martin Scorsese ought to make a thriller about that. ... More on the Leonard Bernstein-Boston connection in the Globe. ... A look at Red Sox co-owner Tom Werner's Hollywood career.

Lunchtime reading

Geoff on the new leader at the Arsenal Center for the Arts ... Verniere on "The Departed." ... Terry on "High Fidelity."  ... And, um, Doc Searles on what's wrong with newspapers' web sites. He hits several nails on the head.

Plough & Stars is a church for many, after all

The Country Gospel Brunch, which has touched down in at least a couple of venues around the city in its erratic existence over the last couple of years, has found a new home. Oct. 15 at noon, the weekly series will bow at the Plough & Stars, 912 Mass. Ave. in Cambridge. The Sacred Shakers brunch house band features members of the Taxbox Ramblers, the Spurs, the Muddy River Rounders and American Primitive, among others, and guests have ncluded Rishell and Raines and Mark Erelli. A good time is had by all. Deets and history are here. The Plough, a venerable watering hole in the People's Republic, is at 617-576-0032 or here.

Dynamic Duo in Davis

Singer-songwriter-folksinger John Gorka and comedian-commentator-loose cannon Jimmy Tingle will celebrate the release of Gorka's new album, "Writing in the Margins," with double-bill performances Friday and Saturday at Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway Theater in Somerville. Tix ($25) and info: 617-591-1616 or www.jimmytingle.com.

Whither the ICA opening date?

I mean, not just because I wrote an advance to the opening for the Improper, but, geez. Geoff says in today's Globe that it looks like mid-November at the earliest. The building got a temporary occupancy permit and staff moved in this week, leaving the old building in the Back Bay for developers. And Tony Oursler doesn't sound worried. But with the Big Dig hanging over us all, there's nothing to say but...bummer.

Concert update

Goo Goo Dolls at the Orpheum Dec. 1, $32.50, on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. The Who, at the Garden, Dec. 2, $50-$200, on sale Monday at 10 a.m. Josh Ritter, at the Somerville, Feb. 2, $21, on sale Saturday at 10 a.m.