>I especially disagree with the idea that McDonagh wants us to
>"root" for Dixon. McDonagh's whole body of work deals with the
>fact that bad people do good things, good people do bad
>things, and everyone has the capacity to do both unforgivable
>things and morally right things. He's obsessed with Catholic
>guilt, but I've never seen a play or movie of his in which a
>character who does something good deserves to be forgiven.

This is exactly right, and he is extremely indebted to Flannery O'Connor for fleshing out how God's grace as a freely given, unmerited gift works. Both writers make us look at how the sausage is made in Aquinas' "grace perfects nature" and insist that rather than a subtle, elegant sanctification, grace smashes us to pieces. It's a horrifying, violent (often literally) destruction of the comfort of our world order and, because both writers are Catholic and understand that it is our responsibility to cooperate with something (as opposed to it being instantly and durably effective) that is truly a gift but doesn't really resemble one in any meaningful way.

Dixon is destroyed. Ditto Mildred. And Willoughby's wife. And Red. And, true to O'Connor's preferred medium of the short story, McDonagh is mostly interested in showing us the smash and the pieces - not the cooperation because that will be long and boring and not any easier.