The New York Times - Recommended
"...But it's more than that. Four years later, the world feels coarser - perhaps it always does - and not just because death has become much more visible in streets and wards and wars. So has people's indifference to it, and to all kinds of suffering and unfairness. McDonagh's cynicism feels closer to our own, or rather we to it. "Hangmen" now plays less like a clever exercise and more like news, with an unnerving headline. Garden-variety amorality is not a far throw from violent psychopathology, it reports, or for that matter from what we call justice."
Vulture - Recommended
"...I've seen Hangmen three times now, with different casts in different theaters: on London's West End, at the Atlantic Theater downtown, now on Broadway. That's not the way to preserve the shock of a plot reveal, though my terrible memory does help me out in that department. It's useful for thinking about the playwright, though. The playwright's not always funny when he wants to be; he has Harry make a series of digs at Shirley about her weight, and these go over like lead balloons. What does work each time is McDonagh's men-are-clowns joke structure. There's something about punters being cruel to each other that lights up his inner Muse."
New York Theater - Somewhat Recommended
"...The biggest of all the surprises in the plot is that we remain uncertain what the full story is. (l’ll keep this vague to avoid spoilers.) I suspect this is one of the several ways the playwright is commenting on the absurdity of the death penalty, although it’s the most indirect. Such lack of clarity about who did what when and why could buttress the abolitionist argument that, given the uncertainty inherent in most crimes, no punishment should be irreversible. If that’s a point the playwright is making, it no longer feels enough compensation for the disappointing holes in the plot."
Variety - Highly Recommended
"...Still, there is something special about "Hangmen," which, were it a song, would be the perfect little ditty to play as you were cutting your wrists. Happily (if such a word would apply to any of his work), this Broadway production is a deadly beauty, flawlessly cast and directed in the mordant style of an executioner's song by Matthew Dunster."
New York Post - Highly Recommended
"...You’re absolutely wracked with guilt at “Hangmen” — from laughing so hard at the many, many inappropriate jokes. A crude sight gag near the end had me practically dry heaving."
Entertainment Weekly - Recommended
"...Death is an ever-present character too, or at least the specter that (no pun) hangs over it all. That's par for the course with McDonagh, though the cheerful brutality of his work can sometimes betray a certain emptiness at the core; what are the stakes, when even a fatal miscarriage of justice is played for punchlines? Hangmen suffers from some of that dissonance, and its longer, talkier interludes serve more as amiable time fillers than story engine. But there's real pathos in between the lines and endless pints of lager - even maybe a little heart."
amNY - Highly Recommended
"..."Hangmen" is a meticulously-plotted work containing eccentric characters and built upon elements of pub drama, physical farce, whodunit mystery, action thriller and legal drama - not to mention a noose and countless pints of cask ale."
Chicago Tribune - Recommended
"...McDonagh, who has had enough success not to have to answer to anybody, is having fun saying things few in the theater even dare to whisper these days, of course, and that will delight those who don’t look for moral earnestness or a neatly tied thematic bow to accompany their precious nights out on Broadway."
The Wrap - Highly Recommended
"..."Hangmen," which opened Thursday at the Golden Theater after successful runs at Off Broadway's Atlantic Theater and London's Royal Court Theatre, is a dark comedy that's vintage McDonagh. Again, he explores the banality of evil, using Grand Guignol effects to reveal that the most ordinary and normal of circumstances are anything but."
Deadline - Highly Recommended
"...Directed with deadly assurance by Matthew Dunster, performed on a remarkably versatile set by a sensational cast, Hangmen would make an excellent companion piece to Tracy Letts' The Minutes - at least for anyone looking to satisfy a hankering for the delightfully macabre."
TheaterMania - Highly Recommended
"...One of the happiest perks and biggest pitfalls of a theater reviewer's job is the opportunity to see off-Broadway shows again when they transfer to Broadway. It's always a pleasure to watch a show you like on a bigger stage, especially when you think it really deserved to move; and it's just as sad when you realize that a return viewing can't live up to your first time. Those are the feelings I wrestle with as I type this review of Martin McDonagh's Hangmen, which ran at the Atlantic Theatre Company in 2018 and had the unfortunate timing of starting previews at the John Golden Theatre on February 28, 2020."
TheaterScene.net - Highly Recommended
"...While many of Martin McDonagh’s plays seem to be mainly about the violence in men’s souls, Hangmen is a character study of people who can’t leave their work behind them. The many characters are expertly drawn while the twists and turns of the plot are engrossing as a kind of mystery. While Hangmen originally played like a thriller Off Broadway, it is now that rare item, a comedy of menace that is extremely funny."
NY Theatre Guide - Somewhat Recommended
"...Besides the unsettling visuals of actual nooses and acts of hanging during the play, scene transitions are led visually by Anna Fleischle's showstopping yet practical set design. Her outfitting of a show that's arrived on Broadway at the wrong time is worthy of the ticket cost, but not worthy enough to sit through the play's entirety and struggle through deep North England accents, snide remarks about monkeys in Africa, and social content that doesn't deserve a giggle. The audience here are the ones to watch. They laughed and gasped, but in 2022, with sensitivities so high, Hangmen needs to be hung out to dry."
Stage Buddy - Highly Recommended
"...This play that won two Oliviers, including Best New Play, is the seventh work of McDonagh's to be presented on Broadway, and under the expert direction of Matthew Dunster, is quick-paced and moves like a well-oiled machine with a skilled cast."
Theater Pizzazz - Highly Recommended
"...When it comes to sucking you into the vortex of a funny, violence-steeped dramatic world, few playwrights can do it with quite the mesmerizing theatrical panache of Anglo-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh (The Pillowman). Give him a gifted director, ensemble, and design team, as in the current Broadway revival of Hangmen at the John Golden Theatre, and he’ll demonstrate as few others can how to make a play turn on a dime from menacing to hilarious and back again."
StageZine - Recommended
"...A Martin McDonagh work-whether a film or a play-is always an event, because there is a brilliant edge to his dark humor and the twists and turns he supplies are a joyous thrill ride. In Hangmen, one keeps waiting for these twists and turns, but the proceedings are so mired with the indecipherable language that even the humor gets bogged down and lost in the proceedings. This is where director Matthew Dunster should have stepped in and realized that it is harder for American audiences to comprehend all the dialogue spoken. He should have had the actors slow down the speed of delivery of the minor and some of the major characters, and simplified the heavy accents a bit to make the proceedings easier for Americans to understand."
Daily Beast - Recommended
"...Directed, as it was off-Broadway, by Matthew Dunster, the play first takes the audience to Britain in 1963, and to a dank jail cell where a prisoner called James Hennessy (Josh Goulding) is pleading for his life as the hangman's noose swings in preparation."
The Observer - Somewhat Recommended
"...I’m quite curious who producers of Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen think the audience is: fans of the Anglo-Irish playwright who’ve somehow never seen a play by Harold Pinter or Joe Orton? Or is it those who have, and don’t care if McDonagh is lazily aping them for a shaggy, lightweight satire on capital punishment?"
Broadway News - Somewhat Recommended
"...“Hangmen” starts with a bang, or should I say, a snap of a neck. The play begins on the morning of an execution, with the condemned man proclaiming his innocence. “I’m getting hung by nincompoops!” he exclaims, frantic and desperate. Another man corrects him: “Hanged. You’re getting ‘hanged’ by nincompoops.” The audience laughs, as the man’s head is enclosed in a noose, and he is pushed to his death. This is the first sign that “Hangmen” is less of a crime thriller and more of an overlong Monty Python sketch."
Theatrely - Highly Recommended
"...The cast is uniformly excellent, with Allen imbuing his blank-cypher role with real personality and wit. His motivations are revealed deliberately by McDonagh, who paces his book with an old-timer's respect for a good ol' fashioned play. His writerly elegance is matched by Anna Fleischle's scenic and costume designs, which flex a budget rarely seen for "new" plays (the work has made its rounds through London's theatre scene, as well as New York's Atlantic Theatre a few years ago)."
New York Stage Review - Recommended
"...Mixing pitch black comedy with genuine terror, Hangman reveals McDonagh at his most technically accomplished, although not his most profound. Overlong at nearly two-and-a-half hours, the play feels like an extended episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, complete with twist ending. Despite its longueurs, however, it’s wonderfully entertaining, thanks to the playwright’s gift for acerbically funny and ever-surprising dialogue, the superb performances by its well-honed ensemble, and Matthew Dunster’s marvelous staging that fully immerses you in the morbidly funny proceedings."
Cultural Daily - Highly Recommended
"...Despite this casting flaw and some thick Northern English accents, Hangmen is hilariously dark and bracingly theatrical. John Hodgkinson steals the show with his one scene as a rival hangman to Harry who is even more puffed-up and grandiose. Gaby French repeats her endearingly odd performance as the introverted Shirley from the Atlantic production and there are many funny contributions from Richard Hollis, John Horton, Ryan Pope and Jeremy Crutchley as Harry's gang of lackeys. Anna Fleischle's complex, haunted-house-like set adds to the grim atmosphere and ingeniously allows for multiple settings."
