THEATRE + COMEDY

Theatre Southwest presents The Beauty Queen of Leenane, by Martin McDonagh.   Directed by Ananka Kohnitz.

In the remote Irish village of Leenane rain is as common as Catholics and the most exciting past-time is watching cows pass by. Lonely spinster, Maureen, is trapped taking care of her elderly, cantankerous mother, Mag. Together they spend their days in rounds of petty insults and horrific abuse.  When Maureen finally discovers romance, things get horribly out of hand.

Featuring:  Julie Thornley, Julie Oliver, Wade Gonsoulin, Joey Melcher.

This dark modern classic is full of clever twists, leading up to its stunning conclusion.

Martin McDonagh (playwright), born in London to Irish parents in 1970, has made a specialty of writing in the dialect of County Galway in Ireland, where his family originated. His dramatic corpus to date comprises two dark comedic trilogies, “The Leenane Trilogy” (The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Skull in Connemara, The Lonesome West) and “The Aran Islands Trilogy” (The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, The Banshees of Inisheer), plus the police interrogational drama The Pillowman.

His plays have taken the world stage by storm, winning numerous awards and provoking controversy for their graphic violence and scabrous humor. In 2006, he won an Oscar for his short film Six Shooter, and he wrote and directed the feature-length film In Bruges, which premiered last year at the Sundance Film Festival.