REVIEW
THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE
Alberta Theatre Projects
Runs until April 20
Martha Cohen Theatre (CPA)
Maureen lives with her quaint old mother in a quaint little cottage in a quaint little town in quaint old Ireland. But anyone expecting anything quaint or picturesque in Alberta Theatre Projects’ production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane better look elsewhere.
Martin McDonagh’s play about a lonely woman and her bitter old mum is a world away from the charming Ireland of Syne and O’Casey. This simple, small-cast play is filled with clever, witty language and an unsentimental vision of a family gone awry.
Forty-something Maureen (Kate Hennig) lives with her invalid mother Mag (Joyce Doolittle). The two women have developed the usual mother-daughter conflict into a fine art. Their caustic relationship alternates between comic turns and hair-raising go-for-blood verbal combat.
Initially, the rural Irish accents used and the slow pace of the opening scene distance us from the characters and their situation. Yet McDonagh’s playful language and the frequent tense pauses in conversation quickly crystallize the bitterness that exists between mother and daughter.
Hennig gives a sympathetic portrait of a lonely spinster who is forced to spend her days looking after her mother, who suffers from a bad hip, a scalded hand and a "U-rine infection." The younger woman is constantly worn down by the older woman’s negativity, Mag's abrasive personality pushing her to increasingly desperate little acts of rebellion. Doolittle plays Mag as a spiteful person, expert at manipulating those around her. While on one level she seems only concerned with her next cup of tea, her next biscuit or her next bowl of porridge, she lives to control the lives of others.
This desolate existence is brightened by the appearance of neighbours Ray and Pato Dooley. The younger brother, Ray, played by Jeff Lawson, is a contemporary teenager – cynical, irreverent and desperate to escape small town life. Played by Denis Fitzgerald, Pato is a friendly, good-natured fellow whose presence promises a new life for Maureen. When she brings Pato home to share her bed for a night, things start to look up. The reaction the next morning when Pato meets Mag in the kitchen is a one of the play's highlights.
The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a funny and unsentimental play that questions Irish stereotypes and clichés as it toys with our expectations and our sympathy. The quaint Irish setting may seem nostalgic, but the lives of these women and the desperation they deal with are as relevant as can be. |
