The Beauty Queen of Leenane

The Beauty Queen of Leenane
by Martin McDonagh

4085

Arena Theatre
Sherling Studio, Poole Lighthouse

Directed by Francesca Folan
Set by Glanville Noye

Wednesday 19th September 2018, 20.00

CAST

Joanna Dunbar – Maureen Folan
Virginia Harrington – Mag Folan
Adam Stoddard – Pato Dooley
Daniel Withey – Ray Dooley

The Beauty Queen of Leenane was Martin McDonagh’s major 1996 success, and a play we’ve always wanted to see. This is a production by local Bournemouth area amateur company, Arena Theatre, which has prestigious patrons … Mark Rylance and Jez Butterworth. It’s in Poole Lighthouse’s smaller studio theatre, so a major contrast to recent London McDonagh productions starring Aidan Turner and Daniel Radcliffe with their incredibly detailed Irish sets.

The Sherling Studio seats 140, so is larger than Bath’s Ustinov (126 seats), which this year seems permanently full with major new original productions with star actors. Poole isn’t even in the race. Looking through Poole’s programme, I am reminded what an actor told me … you can’t get a decent week’s run at Poole, because there are so many “one night only” events scattered right across the calendar. Looking at their ongoing programme the only “full week” running in the Main Theatre coming up is The Play That Goes Wrong. It’s a dreadful waste of an excellent building … large concert hall, 760 seat main theatre, studio theatre and cinema. This evening it seemed deserted except for the Sherling Studio too. They seem to book in these one night events and leave it empty otherwise. Publicity is poor too … in spite of booking several times a year, we hadn’t received the season brochure which we read while we were waiting. Years ago, we were booking six plays at Poole in the winter season alone. They don’t do six plays with a decent run in a whole year now.

So they need to make better and more frequent use of the building, and Arena seems an ideal collaborator for the Sherling Studio. Arena have the nerve to take on modern, very difficult but rewarding plays to do such as Jerusalem and tonight Beauty Queen of Leenane.

First class set

We had expected Arena to have a minimal set, but not at all. They had a full L-shaped backdrop and as in major London McDonagh productions, the set was full of realia from the photo of the Kennedy brothers (as essential as a Saint in any Catholic household), to the radio, to the old portable TV (we had a Hitachi just like) and the genuine 1950s green kitchen cabinet (English Rose?) and the Belfast sink. OK, the back flats were not professional standard, but all the set dressing certainly was. They had also started their run in the proscenium Shelley Theatre in Bournemouth, before moving to Poole’s L-shaped audience configuration … on two sides of a square (they can also put seats on three sides at Poole) so it had to adapt. Costume was equally detailed – Mag’s dressing gown had the pee stains in all the likely places.

Victoria Harrington as Mag

The play has Maureen (aged 40) stuck with Mag (the hag), her 70 year old mother. She looks much older to me and Victoria Harrington is a totally credible Mag. Maureen (Joanna Dunbar) has never been allowed a relationship and has grown to hate the manipulative old woman, who burns any messages to Maureen.

Ray (Daniel Whitney) and Mag (Victoria Harrington)

The neighbours are the lad, Ray Dooley (Daniel Witney) still loathing Maureen for confiscating his swing ball a decade earlier. He’s the McDonagh gangling youth. His older brother Pato (Adam Stoddard) has returned from London and is sweet on Maureen, who is determined to lose her virginity at last and be totally open about it. But does she? He’s no lothario himself, as inexperienced as she is. He shows a very Irish comfortableness with the elderly by offering Mag tea and porridge in the morning after his night with Maureen.

Maureen (Joanna Dunbar) and Pato (Adam Stoddard)

The claustrophobia and sense of lost opportunity falls on all characters. As a play, the programme says it’s McDonagh’s favourite. Hmm, as sentimental value because it is the one that made his name, perhaps. It’s blacker than later McDonagh – well, all McDonagh is black, but the Aran Islands plays are hilarious black comedy. This is far darker stuff without much of the absurd comedy aspect. The Beauty Queen of Leenane reminds me more of Conor McPherson’s The Weir (McDonagh hoovered up the 1996 awards, McPherson hoovered up the 1997 ones – so claustrophobic Irish was in the mid-90s collective) or of Brien Friel. I noted that Arena Theatre have also produced The Weir. In The Lieutenant of Inishmore and The Cripple of Inishmaan McDonagh found a distinctive voice and black comic style, and I don’t find it so much in this bleaker story.

Maureen (Joanna Dunbar)

All four cast members were very good. The demands on the cast, particularly Mag and Maureen are huge. They reach the emotional peaks well. The only ‘amateur’ bit that showed was in the finer parts of comic timing. I thought all had some issues with the script’s language. Without having it in front of me, I feel McDonagh over-uses the “Irish emphatic affirmative” which is did go instead of went, did see for saw, did have for had, did know for knew. Then there’s all the do be doing lines. I hadn’t noticed that “too much Irish English to be authentic” aspect in the Aran Islands plays, though maybe the Irish casts just slipped them out more naturally – it’s notable that the other productions I’ve seen have had virtually all Irish actors in the casts. Daniel Radcliffe was the exception, but spent months with a dialect coach.

Sounds were a tad off – the TV is supposed to be on quietly, always a swine to do. With quite a noisy audience, it was hard to know which bits were the TV and which were just vocalising behind us so was mildly annoying. It needed none or more, but “more” interferes with the actor’s lines over the top. The song played on the radio (very softly) was supposed to be Mag’s favourite, so Maureen listening to it at the end was a big deal, but we only heard a muffled subdued version. It’s important, so give it space, time and volume. I still didn’t catch what song it was. Songs are important to McDonagh – compare The Patriot Game in The Lieutenant of Inishmore.

Props all worked well. The controversial scene, which had audiences shouting out in horror in the initial 1990s run, is when we discover that for a change Mag is telling the truth about “punishments” by having her hand held on a hot stove. Very well executed, but I’d’ve tried to get some dry ice in the bowl of scalding porridge to create a steam effect.

I can’t find a sensible comparative criteria for rating such an excellent and enthusiastic amateur company alongside the RSC, Royal Court and Michael Grandage Company in producing Michael McDonagh. So I won’t put a rating.

I’ll just say we enjoyed it, we were swept up in the story and the dark tragedy which the director and cast created.

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