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.
The first major London revival of Martin McDonagh’s modern classic The Beauty Queen of Leenane opened at the Young Vic on Wednesday (21 July 2010, previews from 15 July) with a cast led by Susan Lynch and Rosaleen Linehan.
McDonagh's first play, and winner of a 1996 Writers' Guild Award, the play tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan (Lynch), a plain and lonely woman in her forties and Mag (Linehan), her manipulative, ageing mother who interferes in Maureen's first and possibly final chance of love.
Although no stranger to courting controversy with his blackly comic and often bloody plays, McDonagh's last notable theatrical outing, A Behanding in Spokane on Broadway, drew furious attacks from New York critics who accused him of using racist language.
Were the London critics more impressed than their colleagues across the pond with this revival?
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (four stars) – "This outstanding Young Vic revival by Joe Hill-Gibbins confirms the play as a classic of mother and daughter warfare in what Fintan O’Toole described as 'the mental universe of people who live on the margins of a globalized culture.' ... Maureen, as played by Susan Lynch in an outsized football shirt, declares her cultural dislocation... She once worked as an office cleaner in Leeds. She suffered a nervous breakdown of sorts. ... Manahan was dank-haired, scheming and devious to be sure, but thoroughly evil, too... a brilliant performance ... Not just mothers and daughters are framed, but brothers, too (Terence Keeley’s Ray Dooley is a hilarious young sidekick of Pato). And his bitter sense of humour is reflected in a writing style as distinctive and individual as any of the writers – Pinter, Mamet, Orton – with whom he bears such honourable comparison."
Michael Billington in the Guardian (four stars) – "How good is Martin McDonagh? In some quarters, he is an artful purveyor of pastiche... I was struck by his double-edged skill: he offers all the familiar delights of farce and melodrama, while at the same time offering a powerful critique of contemporary Ireland ... Without spoiling the plot, one can reveal that Maureen scents a chance of escape when she meets a local bachelor... and the big question is whether Mag will manage to thwart her daughter's one hope of happiness... McDonagh offers a suave assault, through the bitter mother-daughter relationship, on the Irish faith in the sanctity of family. He also paints a vivid picture of the aching solitude of Connemara life... Rosaleen Linehan is magnificent as Mag, indecently gloating over her urine infection as if a badge of honour, and casting endless, furtive glances at a crucial letter intended for her daughter... David Ganly as her putative rescuer, and Terence Keeley as his restless younger brother, also give pitch-perfect performances in a play that actively engages the audience."
Fiona Mountford in the Evening Standard (five stars) – "This cracking revival of his 1996 breakthrough work reminds us once again what a gift McDonagh has for black comedy and what a J M Synge-like ear for language as spoken with a rich Irish accent... Maureen (Susan Lynch), a lonely 40-year-old virgin, fights viciously in a decrepit house with her malevolent mother, Mag (Rosaleen Linehan)... Dialogue this scabrously funny virtually speaks itself but the central duo offer up sparkling turns. Lynch, with a default setting of bedraggled and dishevelled, gives Maureen a wrenching ache of loneliness, as well as a fierce spark of independent spirit. The magnificent Linehan... makes Mag a malignant Buddha sprouting in her strategically-placed rocking chair. So vividly does director Joe Hill-Gibbins realise this scenario that the enrapt first-night audience emitted a panto."
Charles Spencer in the Telegraph (four stars) – "There is an edge of ruthlessness about the writer Martin McDonagh that is both thrilling and profoundly unsettling... McDonagh’s vision of rural Ireland is…thoroughly contemporary... The two main characters... inhabit a hell of their own creation. Mag Folan, the 70 year old mother... constantly bullying and bossing her daughter Maureen, a frustrated virgin of 40 who takes ingeniously spiteful acts of revenge. Their dialogue is full of inventive invective and lingering grudges... The dramatic tension McDonagh creates is brilliantly sustained, while the sudden twists and turns of the plot elicit genuine gasps of surprise from the audience... Susan Lynch is far too attractive to play the plain, lonely spinster... Nevertheless, this fine actress powerfully captures the character’s resentful desperation and precarious mental health. Rosaleen Linehan delivers a terrific tour de force as the monstrous Mag... And there is outstanding support from David Ganly as the decent, tongue-tied suitor and Terence Keeley as his cheeky kid brother... This is a worryingly exploitative piece that turns the audience into giggling voyeurs of profound unhappiness."
Ian Shuttleworth in the Financial Times (four stars) – "This, Martin McDonagh's first play, announced him in 1996 as a theatrical equivalent to The Pogues... remaking traditional material into a new creation that blended a strong lineage with contemporary vibrancy and a horse-doctor’s dose of irreverence... The story of selfish, manipulative 70-year-old Mag Folan and Maureen, the 40-year-old daughter she has in effect chained to their rural Galway cottage for 20 years... It is as if John Millington Synge had written Psycho. Director Joe Hill-Gibbins gets maximum mileage out of the sense of claustrophobia of the single cottage-kitchen location... The central performances come from a pair of masterly Irish actresses... Rosaleen Linehan... and Susan Lynch ... McDonagh’s writing and Hill-Gibbins’ staging alike know the value both of charm and shock... As well as being delicious in its own right, it makes one impatient for a British premiere of McDonagh’s latest (and first American-set) play, A Behanding In Spokane.
Martin McDonagh burst into the theatre with The Beauty Queen of Leenane back in 1996, in an acclaimed joint production by Druid and the Royal Court. This outstanding Young Vic revival by Joe Hill-Gibbins confirms the play as a classic of mother and daughter warfare in what Fintan O’Toole described as “the mental universe of people who live on the margins of a globalized culture.”
The audience enters the rural cottage in Connemara through dark corridors, a rain-sodden patch of scuffed grass and vast swathes of plastic sheeting. And Ultz has designed the dingy kitchen to perfection, with paint peeling on the red door, and a photograph of the Kennedy brothers conjuring the Irish diaspora that awaits Maureen Folan, the doomed beauty queen.
Everything about Maureen, as played by Susan Lynch in an outsized football shirt, declares her cultural dislocation. The church, the community, her disgusting old mother, Mag: they all have their claws in her. But equally, she feels nothing in return. She once worked as an office cleaner in Leeds. She suffered a nervous breakdown of sorts.
Will she ever escape? Not while the old woman’s alive. The first Mag was the late Anna Manahan, a great lump of an Irish actress, but very different from the new Mag of another great Irish actress, Rosaleen Linehan. Manahan was dank-haired, scheming and devious to be sure, but thoroughly evil, too. Linehan, with tight, curly hair and dressed in a ludicrous tartan skirt, is more comical and casually malicious: a brilliant performance.
Originally, too, Marie Mullen was a very picture of worn-down submission as Maureen, whereas Lynch is more plausibly alive to the possibility of escape, sensually responsive to the fumbling masculinity of David Ganly’s bovine, good-natured Pato Dooley. Pato’s lost letter, delivered in a striking soliloquy, is the most disastrously misdirected missive since the Veronese postal system fouled up in Romeo and Juliet.
What remains so disarming about McDonagh is the way in which he both documents the tragic Anglo-Irish dilemma of displacement – and the homeland is no consolation whatsoever -- and hovers above and behind the Irish tradition of Synge, O’Casey and even Eugene O’Neill.
Not just mothers and daughters are framed, but brothers, too (Terence Keeley’s Ray Dooley is a hilarious young sidekick of Pato). And his bitter sense of humour is reflected in a writing style as distinctive and individual as any of the writers – Pinter, Mamet, Orton – with whom he bears such honourable comparison.
Caught the final performance and yes, both the play and the production are as good as their reputation. Wonderful comic performances, and the horror when it came was electifying. - Job
21 Aug 10
Seeing anything just one day following the exceptional Earthquakes in London would be a bit like after the Lord Mayor's Show, but Martin McDonagh's pitch black comedy stood up very well in its own right. You could argue that Susan Lynch is far too glamorous to play a plain downtrodden virgin of 40 and wonder why such a feisty character hadn't done something drastic far sooner, but the twisted tale of two equally malign individuals draws you in even if the plot twists are clearly signposted. Equally of note is that the Young Vic has finally listened to its customers and this is the last time it will be necessary to endure the shambolic scrum 30 minutes before curtain up as the audience scramble to cope with unreserved seating. - David Baxter
19 Aug 10
A dismal pale shadow of the original production. Directed with all the subltlty and nuance of a brick and every dramatic turn of the plot signaled miles in advance.A clever and complex drama is turned into a pantomime farce but with all the humour beaten out of it. Lazy and deeply embarrassing. No one involved seemed to have any sense of what the play is actually about. - Ian David
10 Aug 10
I can't possibly give less than FIVE stars for this terrific production. The absolute star is, of course, the wonderful Rosaleen Lineham, as the coniving ma Mag Folan, but really they are all stars and in particular David Ganly's very moving performance as Pato Dooley. The staging is truly wonderful - a hovel transported from the West of Ireland to The Cut. It would be unfair not to mention Terence Keely's hyperactive Ray Dooley which he pulls off with aplomb and Susan Lynch who grows into the part of Maureen so that by the time the denouement comes the tragedy is palpable. - rds
08 Aug 10
Martin McDonagh was one of the freshest playwriting talents to emerge in the 90¡äs and this was his first play and the first in the Connemara trilogy of black comedies ¨C well, all his work is black comedies! I think we might have lost him to films after the success of In Bruges which he wrote and directed, so we might have to make do with revivals like this. Fourteen years on, Joe Hill-Gibbons has given us a cracking second look at this play and it¡¯s to his credit that it still seems fresh. Ultz has designed a brilliantly realistic cottage and there¡¯s a lovely touch in that you have a peep behind the scenes on the way to your seats. It¡¯s the story of a 40-something virgin spinster who falls for a local man who falls for her. She seems to have found the escape manual but underestimates the deviousness of her manipulative old mother. This is the blackest of black comedies with torture and murder and moments after you¡¯ve stopped laughing you find yourself turning your eyes away from the stage to avoid something truly gruesome. Rosaleen Linehan is terrific as the mother who plays psychological mind games; it may make you recollect being on the receiving end of similar! Susan Lynch is an appropriately naive yet manic daughter and David Ganley was so good as her prospective husband Pato that he got a round of applause for his monologue at the start of Act II. Terence Keeley turns Pato¡¯s brother Ray into a bit of a caricature but it doesn¡¯t detract from the play. I suspect we¡¯ll see a lot more McDonagh revivals; lets hope they¡¯re all this good. - Gareth James
25 Jul 10
Excellent play in an excellent production. And at a 1/4 of the price of a ticket to see the abominable 'La Bete', see this instead!
Cant be bothered to write anything else. Yes i can. All 4 of the actors are amazing, Ireland will be proud.
- Cassox
[TMA] member. 2004 - to close for an estimated 18 to 24 months to undergo an essential overhaul costing £12.5 million. Re-opened Oct. 2006 with the new auditoria named in honour of two theatre women, designer Maria Bjornson and director Clare Venables who died in 2002 and 2003 respectively. The Maria seats 160 while the Clare seats 80.
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