Theatre / The Beauty Queen of Leenane, by Martin McDonagh, directed by Cate Clelland. At ACT Hub, Kingston, until July 5. Reviewed by JOE WOODWARD

There always seems to be something seething below the surface in Irish written plays. 

The Beauty Queen of Leenane is no exception. A seemingly ordinary setting of familiar family relations set in a simple and basic home belies a savagery that is revealed in incremental ways to sculpt a grotesque form of human existence.

Cate Clelland’s direction presents austere, yet at times, comic moments of human beings struggling to keep their personal realities alive in the face of despair. 

Alice Ferguson’s portrayal of the elderly Mag Foley is a picture of loneliness and a reduction to a shell of aged humanity cracking open that frightening sense of loss.

Death confronts her on the TV screen as she waits for the news that never arrives. Her relationship with her daughter, Maureen, compounds all her surrounding darkness and descent. Her blank expression while sitting in her chair is an image that will burn into the viewer’s mind. It is ominous, foretelling and fearful.

Janie Lawson’s portrayal of the daughter is impactful and evokes the sense of one’s fighting against destiny. If only things were different! She fights, at times physically, to avoid and somehow side-step her ultimate direction.

She naively tries to relive a fanciful past as she encounters her middle age while terrified by the awareness of old age! Lawson always compels our attention. She drives the action forward while offering branches to the significant others of Maureen’s life. Drawing out the complexity of such a character must be credited to the skills and commitment of Lawson. 

Bruce Hardie and Robbie Haltiner have difficult roles; each revolving around Lawson’s Maureen. They are virtually intruders into a world within the house that is both angry and potentially controlling. We see glimpses of their lives, which are intertwined with the Foley family. They give shape and surrounding windows viewing into a foreboding and suffocating space. 

For such a dark work, the play has great moments of humour and even comic action. This results from the writing of McDonagh, Clelland’s direction and the excellent timing by the cast.

The comfortable and intimate setting of the ACT Hub ensures the audience is not only a fly upon the wall, but is a participant in the dreamlike exposition or the play; perhaps to haunt their own journey into personal realisations that could disturb their own comfortable sleep!