But of course Martin McDonagh's play - hilariously brutal black comedy or two hours of bludgeoning the audience to remind us that violence sucks; it all depends on your point of view - calls for lots and lots and lots of blood. Blood is its point, its punchline, its metaphor and its reason for being.
"The Lieutenant of Inishmore" is ostensibly the story of a rogue lieutenant in the Irish Republican Army, known (with extreme understatement) as "Mad" Padraic, and of his fury when it appears his cat has been assassinated. As the mayhem increases and expands, however, it becomes more and more clear that what McDonagh's really up to, in addition to indulging his fondness for punk-rock excess, is a stinging metaphorical indictment of the self-defeating stupidity of using violent means for political ends.
Careful, though - he's also insisting, endlessly, that it's all just a big dark joke. So don't get upset by the body parts and the dripping eye sockets and the dead animals - it's a farce, see? Where's your sense of humor?
And it's true that the wretched excess onstage can be disarmingly, almost sickeningly funny; there's a kind of brilliance to the fury with which McDonagh blows his characters and his story apart. Certainly Wednesday's opening-night audience had its share of huge, disbelieving laughs, and a couple of them were mine.
For that, credit goes not only to McDonagh's razor-sharp writing, but to Gammons's skill in keeping the razor's edge poised right at our throats for the full two hours. His pacing and focus are superb, and the whole production supports and rounds out his vision of the play, from set designer Janie E. Howland's shabby cottage on a blasted heath to Gail Astrid Buckley's tatty costumes, Karen Perlow's incisive lighting plan, and Rick Lombardo's careful choices of ear-blasting punk and hard rock. Kudos, too, of course, to special-effects designer Stephen Tolin for all the blood and guts.
