'Beauty Queen' opens in Athlone on Sunday

Martin McDonagh's dark and hilarious Irish theatre classic 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane' is Athlone Little Theatre's first offering of 2012 from this Sunday, February 26 to Friday, March 2, at the theatre in St Mary's Place. Directed by the peerless Paddy Martin and featuring a cast of awesome talent, this production is one that simply cannot afford to be missed. Martin McDonagh exploded onto the Irish theatrical scene with his haunting, hugely acclaimed Leenane Trilogy, of which the 'Beauty Queen' is considered the ultimate classic. As well as garnering huge critical acclaim and multiple awards, the play has become as firm a favourite with Irish audiences as the very best of John B. Keane. This is a unique opportunity for local audiences to see one of the most popular contemporary Irish plays done to the very highest of standards. Paddy Martin's productions are a by-word for creative and dramatic excellence. Last year, he brought the amateur premiere of Conor MacPherson's mind blowing 'Seafarer,' a production that is still being talked about wherever lovers of theatre gather in the midlands. It's safe to say that Paddy's take on the 'Beauty Queen' will long abide in the memories of those who book early enough to see it. Multi-award winning actress Anne Hoey plays Maureen, a feisty yet frustrated woman on the brink of middle age, who suddenly sees one last chance for happiness in the arms of the gentle Pato, played by Ronan Flynn, a man disenchanted with his life in London. The only snag in this latter day Celtic love affair is Maureen's mother, the vulnerable yet menacing Mag, played with extraordinary acuity by Tina O Hara. Maureen functions as carer to the ailing Mag, and she performs her role dutifully while at the same time building up an almost homicidal resentment. It is the dark interplay between the two women that gives the play much of its power, and the relationship between Maureen and Mag, by turns dark, hilarious and at times deeply unsettling, is brilliantly realised by two actresses at the very top of their game. Into this brooding, restless mix steps Ray, Pato's volatile, hyperactive younger brother, played with all his usual verve and comic timing by Dermot McManus. Ray seems at times to come from a world entirely alien to that inhabited by the two women, and much of the Beauty Queen's hilarious comedy comes from Ray's at times almost demented interaction with both Mag and Maureen. But Ray is also troubled in a way we can never quite pin down, and this gives him a weird affinity with the two women. 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane' deals unsparingly with mental illness in a way very few other Irish plays do, and it is as much an illness of time and place as anything else. Apart from Mag, all of the characters in the play long to be somewhere else, but the more subtle strictures of a supposedly more liberated Ireland keep defeating them. Comparisons between McDonagh and JM Synge in the 1990's may have been a bit over the top, but rarely since Synge has such a merciless eye been trained on the foibles and phantoms of the lonesome Irish West. That the Beauty Queen also manages to keep audiences rolling in the aisles is a testament, not just to the skill of a playwright, but to Irish audiences and their guilty pleasures. Paddy Martin's production will explore challenging and exciting new ground in this most entertaining of plays. Anne Hoey and Tina O' Hara simply have to be seen to be believed as Maureen and Mag. Ronan Flynn strikes just the right note as the gentle and lonely Pato, while Dermot McManus will have you clutching your sides in a part he makes absolutely his own. This bold and inspiring production features set design by Paddy Martin and Dermot McManus and construction by the multi-talented Dermot. Stage management is by the ever capable Marie Melia. The play runs from Sunday, February 26 to Friday, March 2. Don't spend the rest of the year complaining about how you didn't get to see it. Early booking is most definitely advisable and can be had by calling the Theatre in St Mary's Place on 090 6474324.