Stage to screen

Playwright Martin McDonagh says he's giving up writing plays to write and direct movies.

The distinctive voice behind "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" and "The Lieutenant of Inishmore," McDonagh's next film project is "In Brugues," which he told Variety is about two hit men spending Christmas in Belgium.

If that sounds much like his plays, you're right.

Still at the Lyceum Theatre in NYC, "The Lieutenant" features an IRA terrorist who wants to split from the group because they're not violent enough. When he comes home to comfort a sick cat, mayhem -- as they say -- ensues. One character says amid the carnage and confusion, "This story just gets worse and worse and worse," which has become my personal mantra.

Variety says his two trilogies of "corpse-strewn black comedies of the grotesque, written in the space of just 18 months, ... owed much to Scorsese, Tarantino, TV soaps and punk rock."

Sounds just right for Hollywood, but the theater will miss him.

TBPAC also plays host the the southeastern United States premiere of McDonagh's dark tale The Pillowman in October, produced by resident theater company Jobsite Theater.

- Michael K.