A Skull in Connemara

The Mainstage Series

For one week each autumn, Mick Dowd is hired to disinter the bones in certain sections of his local cemetery to make way for the new arrivals. As the time approaches for him to dig up the bones of his own late wife, strange rumors regarding his involvement in her sudden death seven years ago begin to resurface. McDonagh, author of The Lieutenant of Inishmore, brings you part thriller-whodunit and part farce, accented with flying skulls and bloody scenes. Strong language and situations.

By Martin McDonagh

September 11-28

Pittsburgh Premiere | Directed by Martin Giles

The Charity Randall Theatre inside the Stephen Foster Memorial, 4301 Forbes Avenue, Oakland

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Reviews

"The main interest in this play lies not in the whodunit or whydunit, but in its simultaneously loving and scathing depictions of small-town Irish characters, and in its darkly comic exploration of human desires and resentments...Under Martin Giles’s deft direction, the ensemble creates a world of believable exaggeration in which the cruelest of actions is at once horrifying and hilarious."

Wendy Arons, The Pittsburgh Tatler

"The most satisfying aspect of this darkly funny drama is not found among the dead but in the language and personalities of its living and lively characters."

Alice T. Carter, Pittsburgh Tribune review

"As Mick, actor James Keegan anchors the play with a stolidity that masks deep pain, then believably breaks out in drunken release and finally subsides into emotional exhaustion...Youthful contrast is provided by Alec Silberblatt's nervy, hyper Mairtin, whose inner life is so feverish he bounces about like a superball."

Christopher Rawson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"...a real head-banger of a dark comedy that comes close, at times, to resembling a contact sport—both physically, and in terms of manic intensity."

Mike Vargo, Entertainment Central Pittsburgh