Theatre review: The Beauty Queen of Leenane

I do worry about my memory sometimes; I saw a revival of Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane just over a decade ago, and upon revisiting it now it seems most of the plot points I most clearly remembered were completely wrong. On the other hand the overall effect of this twisted dark comedy of co-dependent relationships is exactly what I'd remembered, if anything revealing new layers in Rachel O’Riordan's production at the Lyric Hammersmith. The play premiered in 1996 and is set a year earlier, but the village of Leenane exists in a much vaguer time that harks back to early 20th century Irish plays, while the most popular TV dramas appear to be the 1970s Australian series The Sullivans and The Young Doctors, and the exaggerated Irish dialect that McDonagh's dialogue is sometimes known for is particularly pronounced here. It feels like a deliberate attempt to create an Irish rural stereotype that the play goes on to both nod to and subvert.

Slightly outside of the main village and at the top of a steep hill is the house where 40-year-old virgin Maureen (Orla Fitzgerald) has lived all her life, and where she still cares for her 70-year-old mother Mag (Ingrid Craigie.)

When she's not out on chores or taking care of the chickens, Maureen is at the beck and call of Mag, who has a few ailments but seems largely robust, yet prefers to demand her daughter constantly make her cups of tea, bowls of porridge and mugs of Complan. Mag's main contribution to the household is emptying her chamber pot into the kitchen sink every morning, and the two exist in a relationship of mutual antipathy. That's until Pato (Adam Best) briefly returns from England, and Maureen brings him home with her one night. Suddenly she seems to have horizons beyond the village, and Mag isn't pleased about it at all. Fortunately for Mag, Pato's love notes are going to be delivered by his brother Ray (Kwaku Fortune,) the world's least reliable messenger.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane plays out as a pitch-black comedy of two women exchanging very vicious, but very funny insults at each other; although we see some of Mag's manipulative side from the start, Maureen's unfiltered vitriol towards her mother, and the suggestion that she might have become physically abusive towards her, makes her come off as the bad guy. But under the retro surface is a very modern understanding of mental health, and there are reveals to come about the way Mag has exploited her daughter's vulnerability to get a free carer for life.

O'Riordan's production lets the action play out naturalistically so the more extreme elements creep up on you and have a chance to build - the cruel humour is interspersed with softer moments with Pato, or gentler comedy from the motormouthed Ray - so that some moments can still be genuinely shocking. But the humour never goes even when the rug is pulled out from under you (I can't believe I was the only one to laugh at Maureen saying the fire poker had sentimental value.) It's a very entertaining couple of hours, but as Mag gets her final victory when her daughter inevitably turns into her, I think this time around what I particularly appreciated was its quite genuine underlying sadness, and the way an evening of disrespectful behaviour has added up to a respectful look at the hold mental illness can have.

The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh is booking until the 6th of November at the Lyric Hammersmith.

Running time: 2 hours including interval.

Photo credit: Helen Maybanks.