Daniel Radcliffe is doing his darnedest to put Harry Potter way, way behind him. On Broadway alone, he’s played a mentally disturbed young man who strips naked and blinds horses (“Equus”) and an ambitious schemer singing and dancing his way to the top of the corporate ladder (“How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”).
Now the star is contorting himself into a pretzel in “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” a role he tops off with a thick Irish brogue.
Radcliffe’s character, Billy, was born with a mangled left side, his arm shriveled up into a hook and his leg extending stiffly. He’s also an orphan with a tenacious cough, but since there’s neither coddling nor political correctness in 1934 Ireland, everybody on their small island calls him Cripple Billy.
Says local gossip Johnnypateenmike (Pat Shortt), when Billy begs him to stop, “For why? Isn’t your name Billy and aren’t you a cripple?”
There are few options for our young lad, so he’s thrilled when an American crew comes to shoot a movie in neighboring Inishmaan: Maybe he can go back with them and make his way to Hollywood.
But Billy is only part of Martin McDonagh’s eccentric world, which also includes the aging sisters, Eileen (Gillian Hanna) and Kate (Ingrid Craigie), who raised Billy, and Helen (Sarah Greene), the girl Billy longs for — a red-haired terror who loves breaking eggs on people’s heads.
Famous for violent works — “The Pillowman,” “The Lieutenant of Inishmore” and “Seven Psychopaths” — McDonagh is working in a much gentler vein here, even if the humor often has a dark lining: Johnnypateenmike urges his alcoholic Mammy (June Watson) to drink herself to death, while she in turn hopes heartily to see him in his coffin.
But Michael Grandage’s production, imported from London, can be a little one-note — it pales in comparison to Garry Hynes’ earlier off-Broadway take.
In that 2008 version, we understood Billy and Helen as outsiders who were eventually drawn to each other. We don’t get much of that from Radcliffe and Greene. They’re both very likable, but he delivers all his lines in the same semi-urgent tone, while her pigtailed Helen plays like an Irish Pippi Longstocking.
Still, as uneven as it is, the play’s quirkily enjoyable — a limp’s not enough to wreck either man or show.