The Beauty Queen of Leenane NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (104)
See it if You enjoy dark, dark comedy. This is typical McDonagh-- funny and heartbreaking all at the same time. The actors are amazingly specific.
Don't see it if Your ears are lazy and you don't want to have to decipher heavy Irish accents. Family violence, abuse, and in-fighting turns your stomach.
See it if you are up for an intense play that will take you for a ride of the worst of the human being condition... appropriate for these times!
Don't see it if you are looking for a light show during these dark times... not a feel good play. It will haunt you for some time.
See it if you're a fan of dark humor, Irish plays, Irish humor, kitchen sink dramas, mother/daughter stories
Don't see it if you'll have difficulty following thick Irish accents or if you'll be disturbed by a scene of elder abuse and don't find dark humor funny
See it if you like dark comedy.
Don't see it if you haven't seen the play before. This production shows its hand too early for a lot of the twists and turns.
See it if You enjoy dark humor and if you are patient with broad accents and stagy Irish characters
Don't see it if You are squeamish or if the Quiet Man is your favorite movie
See it if you want to see brilliant acting, about a heartbreaking mother-daughter relationship - along with the daughter's moment of a sweet romance.
Don't see it if you don't like dramas, or a slowly paced show. I thought all 4 cast members were brilliant. - I saw in LA in Dec '16 w/ the same cast
See it if you like great acting and a story with depth. The time flew; the play grabs and holds your attention.
Don't see it if you dislike mother-daughter conflict.
See it if love well-acted dramas
Don't see it if no not like plays with heavy accents
Critic Reviews (34)
"Though the dialogue can sound twee, this plausibly represents pastiche as part of McDonagh’s drive to transform Stage-Irish convention into Grand Guignol nightmare. That vein of macabre fantasy means that though 'Beauty Queen' has already become a period piece, it does not feel dated. And under Garry Hynes’s characteristically forceful direction, the play’s repeated lurches between hope and despair, love and hatred, and wit and misery remain jarringly poignant."
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"[W]e are treated to a gorgeous language that possesses more musicality than any by an Irish dramatist since Beckett ... this revival of his first play reminds us that his spirit of rage, anarchism, and gallows humor has burned with consistent intensity for the last twenty years."
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"The show is being revived in stupendous fashion…This is the most assured production of a McDonagh work that I've ever seen…’The Beauty Queen of Leenane’ unfolds with clockwork, almost merciless precision…Credit there to Hynes, who by now clearly understands how to play every moment of this drama for maximum impact, and to this cast, which I think is even stronger than the excellent original troupe. O'Sullivan is devastatingly effective."
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"This fierce black comedy is part of a trilogy of plays...All three explore poverty and desperation in Ireland and how it can lead people to turn on each other. But O'Sullivan and Mullen keep the sometimes-grisly events in 'Beauty Queen' from becoming too grim to bear. They both have an undercurrent of vulnerability which keeps them from being pure monsters and instead, explains something about the human condition: we are the way we are because someone taught us to be that way."
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"A horrifyingly hilarious play. Laced with wit so dry your laughs will fall like tumbleweeds…The brilliance of 'Beauty Queen' is that it is an extremely sad play whose sadism is veiled in quick sarcasm. It finds its life in the lack of life of its two leads and, if it were not for McDonagh's intelligent writing, one could get lost in the ensuing darkness that develops between Mag and Maureen…I cannot reiterate enough the radiance of O'Sullivan and Mullen as a performing pair."
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"In a word, authentic describes Druid’s impeccable revival of Martin McDonagh’s brilliant 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane.' Authenticity, too, applies to the thick Irish accents, which are foreign to this American ear..There’s nothing incomprehensible about the wicked and violent tension between stay-at-home caregiver daughter and iron-willed, bellyaching mother played with perfect timing by Aisling O’Sullivan and Marie Mullen...A masterpiece of modern Irish drama."
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"Perhaps Martin McDonagh’s finest achievement, even beyond a Londoner re-creating a rural Irish milieu to perfection, is his latent ability to balance sympathies between the two leading characters...Do not miss out on a chance to enjoy a slice of recent theatre history and the chance to witness Marie Mullen and Aisling O’Sullivan delivering performances to die for."
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"Directed in a subtle, crafty manner and acted with enthusiasm and invention, it’s an affecting, memorable night...Mullen takes the grand risk of being devious and ugly here and while there might be a few too many moments of mugging, there is compelling clarity and strength in the portrayal. As lead Maureen, Aisling O’Sullivan is fiery, brooding, sexy, and amusing...The men give two outstanding, bravura performances."
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