WHEN you imagine the west of Ireland images are often conjured up of whitewashed stone cottages, roaring turf fires, beautiful dark-haired girls, salt of the earth young lads and kindly old women contentedly wrapped in their shawls.
Martin McDonagh’s play The Beauty Queen of Leenane gleefully takes a flamethrower to all of these notions and presents a starker, grimmer picture.
The cottage is falling in and sootstained, the young woman is stuck caring for an older woman so spiteful she’d be a runner up on Tony Soprano’s mother. The men are either off for work in England or America, or planning to leave soon and the rain pelts down and down.
Caolán Byrne as Pato and Nicky Harley as Maureen 
Masterfully directed by Emma Jordan the play revolves around the highly dysfunctional relationship between daughter Maureen, played wonderfully by Nicky Harley, and her 70-year-old mother Mag, played by Ger Ryan. Mag treats Maureen as a skivvy, belittling her at every opportunity but Maureen isn’t meek and submissive and dishes back what she receives.
Their daily chorus of abuse and pettiness consists of Mag berating Maureen over the consistency of her Complan and porridge and Maureen in turn ensuring it’s ever more lumpy for her mother, who snidely gets her back each morning by emptying her chamber pot with her urine infection into the kitchen sink.
All changes when local lad Ray Dooley played by the wonderful Marty Breen, who’s comical and easy going manner to the eternal bickering of Mag and Maureen, interrupts the daily routine with an invitation to a going away party being held by his uncle – to see the yanks back off to Boston. Ray makes Mag promise to tell Maureen and even writes it down before leaving. Mag promptly burns the invitation spitefully.
Nicky Harley delivers an amazing performance as Maureen
Maureen soon learns of the party, having passed Ray on the way home and scolds her mother forcefully for being spiteful and swears to doll herself up and attend.
Coming home from the party, Maureen brings back Pato – Ray’s brother – who is also home from working as a navvy on the building sites in England. Pato, a working man, bemoans his situation – hating living in England, doing back-breaking labour at the mercy of gangermen and misses Ireland. However when home he hates the nosiness of local life and the lack of opportunities. A quick whirlwind romance takes place and Pato stays the night, much to the horror of Mag who attempts to ruin what might be her daughter’s last chance at getting away and finding happiness.
Characters Mag and Maureen are trapped in poverty and a cycle of mutual abuse
What follows next is tragic, violent and darkly hilarious in a play which manages to encapsulate a range of themes from post-colonial issues, unemployment, brain drain, dysfunctional relationships and poverty.
This darkly comic masterpiece is a must-see for anyone who is a fan of the works of Martin McDonagh and indeed anyone with an interest in the theatre. It is enthralling, hilarious and absolutely terrible all in one go. The acting is superb, the set design and costumes are incredible in their detail, down to the soot above the fireplace, the lashing effect of the rain and the mud speckled trackies of Ray Dooley. All involved should take a bow because they’ve done an amazing job.
The Beauty Queen of Leenane will be showing at The Lyric from 27 May to 1 July. To book tickets, visit The Lyric’s website here.
