Bracing and fiery as a shot of Irish whiskey, The Beauty Queen of Leenane direct from the Druid theater company in Galway, where the Martin McDonagh play was first done in 1997. Druid’s current revival is directed by Garry Hynes, the play’s first director, and it stars Druid’s co-founder, actress Marie Mullen, who won a Tony for her work in Beauty Queen when it was done on Broadway in 1998. In that production, Mullen took on the role of Maureen Folan, the 40-year-old, unstable spinster; now, two decades later, she plays Maureen’s crabby, mean-spirited mother, Mag, in a tour de force performance. Another, younger Druid company actress, Aisling O’Sullivan, more than holds her own as the daughter. Two more superb Irish actors, Marty Rea and Aaron Monaghan, complete the cast, bringing to life the brothers, Pato and Ray Dooley, respectively. The authentic speech of these actors, plus their rooted knowledge of Galway’s people, makes for a rare kind of verisimilitude and believability. It’s doubtful that the play could work as well with an American cast. At the same time, it must be said that all those thick Irish brogues often made the dialogue difficult to understand. A mixture of farce and melodrama, The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the intertwined stories of two farm families in the town of Connemara, the Folans and the Dooleys. Misfortune has blighted the lives of these poor folk (and of just about the entire community, we learn). Mag’s been widowed, Maureen’s had a nervous breakdown (and still sees visions), Pato (Maureen’s lover) can’t find decent work and is thinking of emigrating to Boston, Ray is an angry (but hilarious) rebel. The main conflict stems from Maureen’s love/hate relationship with her mother, her bloody battle to get free of her, make a life for herself — and possibly with Pato. McDonagh squeezes every bit of humor he can out of this symbiotic situation — and out of the Dooley boys as well. Everybody in County Galway is a “character,” the playwright would have us believe. The Taper audience laughed solidly and continually, and didn’t seem to have a problem with the play’s contrivances, mostly having to do with a fatally undelivered letter (shades of Thomas Hardy). And the cast got a long, tumultuous standing ovation – so it’s fair to say that the Beauty Queen has taken L.A.’s theatrical scene by storm.
