Give the man a hand

The Melbourne Theatre Company’s latest production, Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s A Behanding In Spokane, comes with an impressive pedigree, having premiered on Broadway only a year ago with acting titan Christopher Walken as leading man.

Actor Tyler Coppin’s role in the MTC production, that of nervy hotel manager Mervyn, was played by award-winning actor Sam Rockwell — something Coppin told the Star Observer he’d prefer not to think about.

“I’d followed the play before I was in it, so to be offered a role was thrilling. But then I realised Sam Rockwell played my role, so I had to stop researching [the Broadway production], otherwise you kinda can’t get it out of your mind,” he admitted.

The amiable American-born actor said the audience’s reactions in previews were as expected for a black comedy from an Academy Award-winning writer.

“Everyone’s a bit hesitant at first, then slowly you hear peals of laughter echoing when the audience realises what the playwright’s up to. You’re here to laugh, really. That’s a very nice thing for an actor to remember.”

As the title suggests, the play examines the fallout from the ‘behanding’ of one Carmichael, a lonesome cowboy with a decades-long grudge, who stops in at a hotel in Spokane for the night.

“We’re in a sleazy, fleabag hotel in Anytown, USA. We open with this sociopathic guy [Carmichael, played by Colin Moody] who’s searching for his missing hand, which was chopped off by a couple of ‘hillbilly bastards’ when he was a kid. He’s been searching for it for 27 years.”

Enter a couple of “really stupid crooks” (played by Bert LaBonte and Nicole da Silva) who try to dupe our explosive antihero by saying they’ve found his hand and will give it back — at a price.

“This angers him further. It’s a pretty simple premise — ‘angry man in hotel room’ — but it’s just so alive, because you think, how are these two idiots going to get out of this?”

Carmichael’s darkness is countered by a bit of light relief though — this lone ranger happens to be plagued by phone calls from his mother. He’s also regularly interrupted by Coppin’s Mervyn, a hilariously inept hotel manager.

“My character went down for doing a lot of speed, and now he works at the hotel as part of his bail conditions. He was in love with a monkey in a zoo, but it died. He’s a confident dimwit, basically. It’s a bit of a farce.”

McDonagh, famed for plays such as The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Lieutenant of Inishmore, raised some eyebrows when Behanding premiered, it being the Irishman’s first work set in America.

He countered that the play “needed the scope and size of the US, and that sense of American perseverance and endeavour”. Coppin agrees.

“It’s such an American play, and for an Irishman to write it with that distance — and for us to do it in Australia, giving it more distance — puts a unique spin on it.

“American culture is shoved down our throats so much, it’s nice to be able to respond in some way.”

info: A Behanding In Spokane is showing at the MTC Theatre until March 19. Visit www.mtc.com.au