Christopher Walken spooks out ‘A Behanding in Spokane’

Martin McDonagh's bizarre new comedy scares up shocking laughs

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

BROADWAY REVIEW

One very sick yet awfully funny play, "A Behanding in Spokane" stars Christopher Walken as a scary guy dead set on finding the forelimb he lost as a boy.

Anyone squeamish or especially politically correct should skip the new Broadway play that premiered on Thursday at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Racial slurs and moldering body parts fly all over the place.

Otherwise snare an adults-only ticket. Showcased at his spookiest best as a one-handed weirdo, Walken is hilarious and the sharply-staged comedy-thriller he haunts packs 90 minutes of nasty entertainment.

Since they tend to enjoy bizarre stories, Walken's fans in particular will be mad for this latest piece by the ever-devilish Martin McDonagh, who has blitzed Broadway before with his creepy "The Pillowman" and bloody "The Lieutenant of Inishmore." Unlike those shocking works, which for all their horror possess certain moral values, "A Behanding in Spokane" is crafted simply for wicked laughs.

The opening moments disclose Carmichael (Walken) sitting in a seedy hotel room. Somebody apparently locked in the closet is feebly knocking. Carmichael takes out a gun, sighs, walks over to the closet, opens the door and fires. The noise stops. "I did say, didn't I?" he mutters. Carmichael wearily puts away the gun, sits on the bed, lights a smoke and then calls up his mom to see how she's doing.

A screwy hotel room farce soon erupts wherein the menacing Carmichael gets his singular clutches on Toby (Anthony Mackie) and Marilyn (Zoe Kazan), a frantic couple of nitwit weed dealers whose failed scam to sell the man a phony hand -- or at least a hand not his - gets them chained to a radiator. An unhelpful slacker of a desk clerk (Sam Rockwell), a mysterious suitcase and an improvised bomb are among other factors figuring into McDonagh's curious caper.

How these lowdown characters and their reeking conversation transforms into enjoyable black comedy is a dramatic alchemy known only to the playwright, but the results are as satisfying as they are sordid.

So are the contrasting performances happening within the artful realism of designer Scott Pask's literal hole-in-the-wall setting. Director John Crowley's expertly-staged production is energized most (as well it should be) by Walken's unsettling powers as the hand-wrangling Carmichael. Mooching about in untidy black, Walken spins this oddball character with deadpan comic exactitude, dominating the show even when he's not in the room. Kazan, Mackie and Rockwell are young stars on the rise, but Walken's dark star shines brightest over Broadway.

"A Behanding in Spokane" continues through June 6 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 W. 45th St., New York. Call (212) 239-6200 or visit www.abehandinginspokane.com.