The Beauty Queen of Leenane, written by Martin McDonagh at the Lyric theatre, Belfast

 THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE

WRITTEN BY MARTIN MCDONAGH

DIRECTED BY EMA JORDAN

At the Lyric Theatre, Belfast on the 31^st of May 2023

 

Caolan Byrne and Nicky Harley in The Beauty Queen of Leenane

The play begins with the open plan of a traditional Irish cottage complete with modernish furniture.  The set designer Ciaran Bagnell has created a strange twisted skeletal device protruding from the roof drooping downwards, perhaps commenting ironically on the devious nature of the characters who have not grown up straight and tall.  Music, both diegetic and non-diegetic, is deployed, indeed music often counterpoints the characters feelings of isolation, alienation, and rage.  The stage is fully lit, light pours onto the stage, and smoke, presumably Irish mist, rises outside (when it isn’t raining).

Caolan Byrne in The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Two women discuss serious issues such as language, in particular speaking Irish rather than English and the possibility of emigration and a new life in America.  The older woman who is about 70 is Mag Folan played faultlessly by Ger Ryan and her daughter Maureen Folan played without sentiment by Nicky Harley who is 40.    A third character, Ray Dooley played by Marty Breen, pops in but Maureen is out and leaves a written invitation to a party to meet Ray’s American uncle which Mag destroys.  However, Maureen has met Ray on the path and finds out from him about the party then punishes her mother upon her return by making her eat lumpy complan.

Ger Ryan and Nicky Harley in The Beauty Queen of Leenane

The play implies other famous Irish dramas and poems such as Patrick Kavanagh’s The Great Hunger and McDonagh’s own screenplay for The Banshees of Inisherin where loneliness, frustration, sterility, and rage at being unable to find access to the wider world and to the things that people expect of life such as marriage, work, and family.  Perhaps there are even older allusions to J.M.Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World and the plays of Dion Boucicault.  The play is set in the west of Ireland, eschewing the trite urban scene of London or Dublin.  This is an early play by McDonagh and there are signs of unfinishedness in the writing which resembles both an episode from Mrs Brown’s Boys and works by Samuel Beckett.

Nicky Harley in The Beauty Queen of Leenane

This can be particularly observed in Maureen’s relationship with her mother who is clearly both devious and manipulative, unwilling to give up Maureen who cares for her.  Sometime in the past Maureen has been committed to a mental hospital in England called Difford Hall and she is still her mother’s ward, in other words, her mother still has legal responsibility for her.   Maureen is a virgin who has only ever been kissed by two men, even so her mother refers to her as a ‘whore’.  The overblown and melodramatic content are matched by language that is somewhat stereotypical and limited.  The issues of language, culture and history are only ever debated in predictable and rather obvious ways.  Eventually Maureen finds a man, Pato Dooley played with the right kind of aplomb by Caolan Byrne and flaunts her love making by bringing him to the cottage and appearing in the morning scantily clad before her mother, as if to taunt her.  But her plans for escape never come to fruition. 

Marty Breen and Ger Ryan in The Beauty Queen of Leenane

The fairytale origins of the play are never far away, from the wicked parents in Hansel and Gretel to the wicked sisters in Cinderella, we are reminded of archetypes and cliches.  Even the design of the cottage intimates the witches’ cottage in Hansel and Gretel with its constricted interiority and dark, twisted tree wrapped around the cottage’s eaves.  When Maureen scalds Mag with bowling water we are reminded of the ugly sisters whose eyes are pecked out by vengeful doves in the version of Cinderella known as Aschenputtel by the Brothers Grimm and the agonising death of the witch in Hansel and Gretel who is shoved into the oven by Gretel and burnt to death.  But it hardly matters, does it, she is, after all, a witch.  In these parables, violence is stark and is entirely justified like the death of Mag in this play.  Of course, the Irish cottage also reminds us of Irish nationalism, the simple cottage being the original place of the nation.  Previous artificers like Yeats and Synge come to mind, from the ‘stranger in the house’ motif to he found in Yeats’ play Kathleen ni Houlihan, signifying colonialism and imperialism.  In this play there are no strangers in the house, but outsiders do intrude upon the toxic scene.

Marty Breen and Nicky Harley in The Beauty Queen of Leenane

The set is cheap, basic, and rather predictable and echoes the direction of the drama.  Maureen is completely exonerated at an enquiry into the death of her mother.  At the end she appears to be stuck in the cottage and begins to resemble her.  Maureen's lover has gone off with someone else.  The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a play which might become a good screenplay but seems stuck between the rather broad outlines created by the playwright and the limitations of the characters.  It seems destined to be a big hit in the United States but then again Dion Boucicault who created many stereotypical versions of Ireland also aimed at American consumption.    The Lyric theatre production of the play is striking and effective and the various dimensions of set design, lighting, sound, and costume design blend together.  The fault lies with the script and the author’s intentions.

Nicky Harley in The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Paul Murphy, Lyric Theatre, May 31^st, 2023

Ger Ryan and Nicky Harley in The Beauty Queen of Leenane