Review: Beauty Queen of Leenane

Maidment Theatre

Review: Susan Budd


Life in Ireland's wild West, Connemara, is nasty, brutish and not short enough in Martin McDonagh's black comedy, the third production in the Auckland Theatre Company's Wild Child Season.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane has won swags of awards in London and New York for its compelling narrative, vivid characterisation and cruel humour. Jonathan Hardy's masterly production mines the rich, dark peat of the play to reveal a tragedy of epic proportions in the waste of lives in frustration that erupts into violence and hatred.

He avoids the temptation to trade on stagy Irishness and cheap laughs, allowing each character integrity and humanity even when manifested in squalor.

The contest between Maureen Folan and her mother, Mag, is bitter unto death.

The 40-year-old daughter avenges her long years of servitude through petty and eventually extreme acts of torture. Lumpy porridge and nasty biscuits are served to the old crone who refuses to leave her seat by the fire and she, in return, fights back by withholding information that may provide an escape from, or the alleviation of, Maureen's life of drudgery.

Even her disgusting personal habits are weapons in their war. Their mutual hatred is tangible.

Maureen, as played by Donogh Rees, is no defeated slattern. Repressed violence underlies her every act and word, even as she is forced to submit to her mother's demands.

She flaunts her sexuality before the old woman when Pato Dooley, a shambling Prince Charming played with delightfully comic sincerity by Michael Lawrence, stays the night in their mean cottage.

She is indomitable even in the revelation of her descent into madness 15 years before. She has fierce dignity, rough charm and a lust for life.

Lee Grant gives a beautifully controlled portrayal of Mag, moving with horridly pathetic stealth in her war of attrition. Although she is loathsome, there is true pathos in her cry when it appears her plans are going awry: "But who'll look after me, so?" It is only with young Ray Dooley, played with autistic energy by Andrew Glover, that she reveals any semblance of amiability.

John Verryt's set, lit atmospherically by Rob Peters, provides a perfectly drab backdrop to the horrific comedy of their lives.