By Chuck Graham, TucsonStage.com
photo by Tim Fuller
Maureen (Holly Grifffith) shakes the rocker of her mother, Mag (Cynthia Meier) in this tightly-wound production.
One of the most emotional theater experiences you will ever have is seeing the Rogue Theatre production of the Irish kitchen sink drama “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” by Martin McDonagh.
As you might imagine, within the play's context, that title is first used sarcastically to describe hapless 40-year-old spinster Maureen (Holly Griffith), wasting away from the inside out, looking after her bitterly manipulative mother Mag (Cynthia Meier) in the forgotten County Galway village of Leenane.
Hatred is their daily meal, the one quality they both depend on for the energy to get from one moment to the next. The realistic stage setting designed by Joseph McGrath depicts a humble hovel where everything looks worn out, defining the exhausted confines of their life together.
In the background there is a framed photograph of John and Robert Kennedy, but the year could be anytime. Christopher Johnson calls the story “a folk tale” and, as director, squeezes every bit of savage anguish from the script and from his cast.
The suffering hearts that tear at our own wrongful memories belong to Maureen and Meg. We see them and we know them. Their restless lives filled with narrow thoughts lacking focus, dreams left unplucked, hanging at a distance, dying on the vine instead of blooming.
These performances of the mother and daughter become a masterful duet depicting the futility of hope surviving without a breath of optimism in their smothering futility.
There are also some funny lines scattered into these perpetual confrontations, sardonic laughter that lifts the pressure briefly, only to waft away without effect as nothing between these two can ever change really.
Introducing some forces from the outside world are Pato Dooley (Ryan Parker Knox), a neighbor also approaching middle age, who is determined to break away by finding construction work in London, and Pato's younger brother Ray (Hunter Hnat) who is less successful in his ambitions.
These are smaller roles but both men maintain the play's intensity, contributing to the agitated battle of wills between Maureen and Mag.
As the plot and Mag's lumpy porridge thicken, Pato announces he might have a chance to live and work in the United States. While Maureen hopes Pato's plan includes inviting her to come along, Ray and Mag hope they don't.
Johnson's determination to keep boring in on the permanence of the mental prison Maureen and Mag have created for themselves makes it difficult to find anything likable in either woman. However the playwright does have his own ideas about how justice finally will be served.
As is often the case at the Rogue, there is musical accompaniment which sometimes serves as a bit of a soundtrack for the play. In this production, the music director and composer is Russell Ronnebaum, using cello and violin to frame the melancholy.
“The Beauty Queen of Leenane” continues through March 15 with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m., at the Rogue Theatre, 300 E. University Blvd.
Tickets are $42. Student rush tickets $15, 15 minutes before curtain, valid ID required. For details and reservations, theroguetheatre.org or phone 520-551-2053.
No comments:
Post a Comment