A Criminally Enjoyable ‘Hangmen’ from Martin McDonagh

NEW YORK — Please allow him to introduce himself, not that he’s remotely shy about doing so. He’s a man of stealth and taste, a smooth talker out of 1960s London who dresses like a Teddy boy and seduces with buttery brashness.

The name of this spiffy young devil, whose contemptuous charm is dripping from the stage of the Linda Gross Theater, is Mooney. He’s a dab hand at misdirection, the sort of fellow who sets even stolid minds spinning in paranoia and perplexity. Mooney, it must be said, has a lot in common with the artful playwright who created him.

That would be Martin McDonagh, whose criminally enjoyable “Hangmen,” a juicy tale of capital punishment and other retribution, opened Monday night. And aren’t we happy that McDonagh, who of late has mostly been otherwise engaged with movies (including the Oscar contender “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), has reclaimed his mantle as the great deceiver of contemporary theater?

Mooney, portrayed with fabulous insinuating swagger by Johnny Flynn, is the chief troublemaker in this sly throat-gripping mystery, which originated at London’s Royal Court Theater and arrives here courtesy (thank you!) of the Atlantic Theater Company. And though it might be an overstatement to call Mooney McDonagh’s alter-ego, you must admit that their methods of grabbing — and holding — our attention are not dissimilar.

Planting false information, taking advantage of our willingness to believe the worst, diverting our focus with left-field wordplay, investing everyday details with ominous import, making sick jokes that may not be jokes at all. Such tools are part of both Mooney’s and McDonagh’s modus operandi in this dark tale of Northern England, set largely in a pub owned by a man whose life’s work has just been made illegal.

That profession provides the title of “Hangmen,” which is directed with gleaming precision and grinning relish by Matthew Dunster. And before we settle in for a cozy, chilly chat with some loquacious drinkers at their local, we get to see our leading executioner in action. His name is Harry (Mark Addy, first-rate), who has the complacent, well-fed look of an eater of beef and death-dealing servant of the crown.

In the opening scene, set in 1963, Harry, aided by his stuttering assistant, Syd (a creature of Dickensian furtiveness, as played by Reece Shearsmith), secures the noose around the neck of a convicted young murderer who dies protesting his innocence. Played with blazing desperation by Gilles Geary, the doomed man gasps out a last-minute promise to haunt his assassins. (“Well, that’s not a nice thing to say, is it?” says a peeved Syd.) Remember his name: Hennessy. Harry and Syd certainly will.

Two years later, Hennessy inevitably comes up in the conversation at the pub that Harry now owns. It is, as Harry puts it “a momentous bloody day,” the date on which capital punishment has been made obsolete.

A young reporter (Owen Campbell) is there, asking for a few commemorative words from Harry, and if Harry is smart (which he ain’t) he’ll say nothing. In the meantime, our Mooney slithers into the pub, bringing the disharmonious vibe of a swinging, sexed-up London into this frozen outpost of the middle-class 1950s.

That’s about all you need for setup, though I suppose you should know that Harry has a very bored wife, Alice (Sally Rogers), and a restless, terminally naïve 15-year-old daughter, Shirley (Gaby French). The denizens at Harry’s bar — a sheeplike herd of enjoyably varied bleats — include an ineffectual policeman (David Lansbury), and three wilting barflies (Billy Carter, Richard Hollis and John Horton) drawn to the place by its owner’s notoriety. Lurking at the plot’s edges is Harry’s archrival from his hanging days, Albert (Maxwell Caulfield). The big subject of “Hangmen” is the uses and abuses of vengeance, a theme much on McDonagh’s mind. “Three Billboards” traces the wayward forms taken by the urge to get even in a small town. Since “Three Billboards” is a Hollywood movie, there is sunlight, real and metaphoric, throughout, with glimmers of that audience-pleasing essential known as Redemption.

“Hangmen,” in contrast, is every bit as dark as McDonagh’s early, bloody plays set in rural Ireland (including “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” and “The Lieutenant of Inishmore”). As for redemption, forget about it. People are either foolish or dangerously flawed in the world of “Hangmen.”

For a writer of McDonagh’s scalpel-edged gifts, these unadmirable qualities are joyous opportunities, allowing for the sort of conversation in which stupidity and pettiness achieve the sparkle of wit. “Hangmen” is often very funny. But as you laugh, you may feel the walls of Anna Fleischle’s clammy pub set closing in on you. There will also be thunder and lightning, during a dark and stormy day in which someone goes missing and light thickens, as surely as it does in “Macbeth.” (All credit to Joshua Carr, the lighting designer.)

Replacing the estimable David Morrissey, whom I saw in London, Addy brings an extra layer of fatuity and vanity to Harry, which makes you suspect that any comeuppance he receives won’t seriously dent this thick skin. The excellent Rogers returns as Harry’s frowzy helpmeet, a woman narcotized by monotony, who can still put on the dog for a handsome stranger.

An affectingly awkward French, new to the cast, and Flynn work up a thrilling fly-meets-spider chemistry. And though the play features two simulated deaths (though without the usual McDonagh carnage quotient), its most viscerally disturbing moment finds Mooney slowly, slowly tracing an arc in the air with his hand, to show Shirley he knows what a curve is.

If that doesn’t sound scary to you, then you don’t know McDonagh, who understands that the most profound shock effects are often rooted in life’s most mundane elements. (Interestingly, he registers as more of a shrewd disciple of Alfred Hitchcock in his plays than he does in his movies.)

That’s a lesson that’s perfectly grasped by the sensational Mooney of Flynn, whose résumé includes Shakespeare with Mark Rylance and his own folk-rock band. Mooney revels in scrambling notions of what’s funny and what’s frightening.

Niggling arguments about words abound in McDonagh’s world. “Hanged” versus “hung” as a past tense crops up at the darnedest times here. And Mooney is given to earnestly weighing the adjectives that best suit him, as if they were neckties: creepy (no!), funny (well, not really) and menacing (absolutely).

He’s wrong, though. Mooney is hilariously menacing, or do I mean menacingly hilarious? In any case, he’s a happy-creepy reminder that McDonagh can still work his double-edged, sinister magic on a stage, making breathless, alarmed and deeply satisfied dupes of us all.

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Production Notes:

“Hangmen”

Through March 7 at the Linda Gross Theater, Manhattan; 866-811-4111, atlantictheater.org. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

Credits: By Martin McDonagh; directed by Matthew Dunster; sets and costumes by Anna Fleischle; lighting by Joshua Carr; sound by Ian Dickinson for Autography; fight choreography by J. David Brimmer; production stage manager, Hannah Sullivan; production manager, S.M. Payson; general manager, Pamela Adams; associate artistic director, Annie MacRae. Presented by the Atlantic Theater Company, Neil Pepe, artistic director, Jeffory Lawson, managing director.

Cast: Mark Addy (Harry), Owen Campbell (Clegg), Billy Carter (Charlie), Maxwell Caulfield (Albert), Johnny Flynn (Mooney), Gaby French (Shirley), Gilles Geary (Hennessy), Richard Hollis (Bill), John Horton (Arthur), David Lansbury (Fry), Sally Rogers (Alice) and Reece Shearsmith (Syd).