While still in his twenties, the Anglo-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh filled houses in New York and London, was showered with the theatre world's most prestigious accolades, and electrified audiences with his cunningly crafted and outrageous tragicomedies.
The Beauty Queen of Leenane (The Leenane Trilogy #1), Martin McDonagh
The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a 1996 dramatic play by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh.
Maureen Folan, a 40-year-old, lives in the Irish village of Leenane, Connemara, in the early 1990's with her 70-year-old mother Mag, for whom she acts as caretaker.
While Maureen is out, the Folan home is visited by Ray Dooley, a young man, who invites both women to a farewell party for his visiting American uncle. When it seems Mag is incapable of remembering this message, Ray writes it down for Maureen. As soon as he leaves, Mag destroys the note in the furnace.
Upon Maureen's return, she admonishes her mother for depending on her as if she were an invalid; despite her bad back and burnt hand, Maureen thinks Mag is capable of doing more for herself.
Maureen has already learnt of the party from Ray, whom she passed on her way in, so she punishes Mag for her dishonesty by forcing her to drink lumpy Complan.
Maureen, a virgin who has only ever kissed two men, buys a new dress and attends the party. She brings Ray's older brother, Pato, home with her. Pato is a construction worker who lives primarily in London, though he is unhappy both there and in Leenane.
He reveals that, although he has barely spoken to Maureen in 20 years of acquaintance, he has secretly thought of her as "the beauty queen of Leenane" for a long time. She brings him to her bedroom. In the morning, Mag empties her bedpan into the kitchen sink, a daily habit that disgusts Maureen. ...
Leenane, a small town in Connemara, County Galway.
On a hill sits a cottage. Living within are a mother & daughter. Mag & Maureen. Though living isn't what you would call it. Existing would be a stretch. Theirs is a toxic, co-dependent relationship built on years of resentment.
One day is much like the other. A dull tone of grey. That is until a neighbour comes calling with an invitation to a send-off for a family heading off to Boston. And so a chain of events is set into play.
As Maureen falls for Pato Dooley at the knees-up, her relationship with her mother falls further into the mire. One fears she will never leave, the other fears she will be left behind.
MAUREEN: Whore? (Pause.) Do I not wish, now? Do I not wish? (Pause.) Sometimes I dream...
MAG: Of being a...?
MAUREEN: Of anything! (Pause. Quitely.) Of anything. Other than this.
Make no mistake, this is pitch black humour. In fact, I don't know that humour is the right word. There are so many spot on cutting observations that had me laughing out loud. But there were so many more moments where I could simply have cried. At the unfairness of life. At cruel twists of fate. This play cut me to the core. It is utterly devastating. Which made the comedic moments hurt even more.
The complexities of relationships, especially familial ones are turned inside out. How easy it is to hurt one another, to know exactly which buttons to push. You always hurt the one you love.
Martin McDonagh can write. His eye for detail & ability to capture the pathos of people's lives is second to none. And to think he wrote this when he was in his 20s.
I was lucky enough to see this play performed on stage, and it was like a kick to the guts. It just hurt so damn much.
If you live in Sydney, make sure you see the awesome STC* production currently playing at The Roslyn Packer Theatre. Haunting.
*STC = Sydney Theatre Company
Postscript! I've just realised I forgot to rate it. That's how much it affected me. 5 aching stars 鉁┾湬鉁┾湬鉁�
This was my sixth Martin McDonagh play and actually my third and final read from his Leenane trilogy (despite it being the first Leenane installment - but these plays are only very loosely connected and you do not need to read them in order). Here I was thinking that McDonagh couldn't possibly shock me any more than he has in the past - I do consider myself familiar enough with his style of black comedy that my continued reading of his plays has more to do with their comfortable familiarity than with unearthing a facet of his writing that I feel I haven't already uncovered.
But what I hadn't counted on with The Beauty Queen of Leenane was how immeasurably sad it was going to be. For once McDonagh's characters aren't memorable for their immorality as much as for how pitiable they are, and though the dialogue is as sharp and irreverent as ever, the humor in this one doesn't hit its mark quite as much as the more somber undercurrents do. Isolation, wasted youth, mental illness, and domestic claustrophobia are all at the heart of this deceptively dark story about an elderly mother and middle aged daughter living in a cottage together in rural Ireland. I think it shows that this is McDonagh's first play - his craft of dark comedy doesn't feel sufficiently honed and there are some dissonant elements that don't fully come together, but my god is this haunting.
Mellow the moonlight to shine is be ginning, Close by the window young Eileen is Spinning; Bent o'er the[D7] fire her blind grandmother, sitting, Is crooning, and moaning, and drowsily knitting:
"Eileen, achara, I hear someone tapping." "Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping." "Eily, I surely hear somebody sighihg," "Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying."
Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring, Swings the wheel, spins the wheel, while the foot's stirring; Sprightly, and brightly, and airily ringing Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.
"What's that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?" "Tis the little birds chirpmg the holly bush under." "What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on, And singing all wrong that old song of 'The Coolun?" There's a form at the casement - the form of her true love - And he whispers, with face bent, "I'm waiting for you, love; Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly, We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly."
Merrily, cheerily, noiselessly whirring, Swings the wheel, spins the wheel, while the foot's stirring; Sprightly, and brightly, and airily ringing Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.