The Legacy of the Scaffold: Death Penalty and Collective Violence in Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen (2015).

Year 2026, Issue: 5, 87 - 99, 26.01.2026

Panagiota Koutsi

Abstract

This article examines Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen (2015) as a play that critically engages with the legacy and cultural implications of the death penalty in Britain. Set in the aftermath of capital punishment’s abolition, the play follows a celebrated executioner who retains local celebrity status in his pub, thereby foregrounding the lingering fascination with punitive authority. Through the interplay of black humour and violent imagery, McDonagh disrupts spectators’ comfort, exposing the sociocultural reliance on punishment and retribution. Central to the play is the wrongful hanging of an innocent man, which underscores the fallibility of the judicial system and society’s troubling ease in constructing scapegoats to justify executions. At the same time, McDonagh emphasizes the executioner’s own psychological entanglement, illustrating how the death penalty corrodes not only its victims but also those charged with enacting it. By staging these tensions, Hangmen reveals how the death penalty shapes sociocultural relations and exposes the enduring violence that underlies communal reactions to perceived injustice.

Keywords

Martin McDonagh , death penalty , Hangmen , collective violence , Anglophone theatre , justice , retribution , Britain

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