The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Synopsis

McDonagh's first play. 1996 Writers' Guild Award Winner - Best Fringe Theatre Play. Set in a small cottage in the mountains of Connemara, The Beauty Queen of Leeane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her forties and Mag, her manipulative, ageing mother. When Mag interferes in Maureen's first and possibly final chance of a loving relationship, she sets a chain of events in motion that lead inexorably towards the play's terrifying denouement. Contains scenes of an adult nature.

Our Review:

25 February 2010

Martin McDonagh's play has gone on to enormous success since its 1996 première in Galway. It had long runs in New York and in London, garnering a slew of awards and rave reviews for playwright and performers. In a bleak and depressing Connemara cottage, Maureen Folan, the unfortunate daughter who,unlike her sisters, wasn't allowed to escape, looks after her manipulative, demanding mother, Mag. The drudgery and slog of daily life is interrupted by a visit from the Dooley bothers. Ray, the irresponsible, soap watching, wastrel and Pato, the elder brother, disenchanted with his life as a labourer on English building sites but not really at home in Leenane either. We are lulled into thinking that there is a chance that Pato might rescue the fragile Maureen from her awful existence but McDonagh takes us down a very different and enormously disturbing path.

Cara Kelly is superb as Maureen and so too is Nora Connelly as her mother, delivering some of the best...

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