The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Martin McDonough’s magnificent tale of family struggles in rural Ireland with a breathtaking mix of wit, black comedy, and psychological drama
Simply saying what the play is about, at least on the surface, is inadequate. A plain middle-aged woman, trapped in a life as a caretaker to her infirm but iron-willed mother in rural Ireland, is offered a last chance at love. But wait. If Beauty Queen is a bucolic cousin to The Heiress’ it also has the more toxic elements found in Grand Guignol films like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. And Mr. McDonagh has a master’s hand at building up and subverting expectations in a cat-and-mouse game with the audience. The play offers the satisfactions of a tautly drawn mystery, yet it is by no means airless. There’s plenty of room for ambiguity and for the intricacy of character that actors live for.

And the cast of Beauty Queen is a powerhouse foursome from The Production Company: Judy Nazemetz, who dazzled in last year’s Fifth of July, and Ferrell Marshall, who was revelatory in TheProdCo’s To Kill a Mockingbird, play mother and daughter Mag and Maureen, caught in an ever twisting dance of victim and torturer. Ovation nominated actor Rob Herring returns to our stage as Ray after starring in The Diviners and Sweeney Todd. The cast is complete with the subtle and intricate performance of Alex Egan as Maureen’s last hope, Pato; last seen in The Diviners alongside Mr. Herring.