The Beauty Queen of Leenane NYC Reviews and Tickets
Show-Score Member Reviews (104)
See it if you love Irish plays and appreciate great writing even if the themes are a bit jarring. It was exquisitely acted and deeply moving.
Don't see it if you want light entertainment. This is serious drama intended to be harsh and disturbing in its beauty, as was the original Bway production.
See it if you love your humor dark. A very bleak and funny look at lives twisted and broken by poverty and dependence.
Don't see it if you don't like Irish theater.
See it if you are a fan of strong Irish theater. Extra benefit - you can now see the original daughter as the mother.
Don't see it if you do not want to see an intense performance that makes you think and forces you to listen to Irish dialects
See it if 20th anniversary of McDonagh's pitch black dramedy is as riveting as ever The ensemble is as perfect as Hynes' Tony winning direction.
Don't see it if Irish/Gaelic accents often a little thick but seldom a problem Mullen's mother could be a bit more malevolent but a minor objection
See it if you want to witness masterful acting in a terrific, sometimes extremely funny, drama.
Don't see it if you want light, simple, or easy. This is a claustrophobic, dark family drama with violence and several twists. But - brilliant.
See it if you're a fan of McDonaugh done on a master-level.
Don't see it if violence against the elderly or foul language bother you
See it if You like dark humor and you have an appreciation for subtle drama.
Don't see it if You have a hard time with heavy (but accurate) accents.
See it if you appreciate a very dark comedy and truly exemplary writing and acting.
Don't see it if have trouble understanding Irish accent or can't live without a happy ending. Read more
Critic Reviews (34)
"The play is as biting and horrific as ever, but a constriction of energy has settled on the whole affair, leaving it unable to explode the way it needs to….McDonagh's script would succeed in the worst situations; Druid's polished if staid revival hardly fits that description. If the gasps emanating from the audience at 'Beauty Queen's' surprise grisly turn are any indication, a new generation of horrified admirers is now being born—even if this particular show leaves a few goosebumps unraised."
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"Aisling O'Sullivan shows off the breadth of her skill. It's a complex role, marinating in fury, luxuriating in fortune, and ending in DuBois-like madness...Marty Rea, as Maureen's love interest, has a giddy and awkward boyish charm that makes him more likable and thus amplifies the tragedy...Mullen is both larger than life and devastatingly human. The overbearing mother is a familiar theatrical trope, and Mullen understands the way McDonagh both embraces and plays on that tradition."
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"Has aged well for a four-character, one-room play...The dialogue between Mag and Maureen is rhythmic and their delivery percussive...Marty Rea thrives as Pato Dooley, seizing on each of the most subtle facets of a character single-handedly responsible for the action that results in other characters’ reactions...Direction by Druid Theatre co-founder Garry Hynes gives power to these words, ensuring their import is not only not lost, but accentuated."
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"As McDonagh’s first play, 'Beauty Queen' proves somewhat tamer than those that were to follow, and yet there’s a melancholy to it that feels more sincere than the often ruthless black comedy that would become his trademark. Still, the sinister undercurrent is there, breaking through late in the show with a twist that still manages to shock... Resentment has a long fuse in Leenane, and though McDonagh characters don’t get out much, they have quite a way of solving their own problems."
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"The play has aged like a bottle of fine Irish whiskey, with Hynes returning to the helm and Mullen again starring, in an outstanding production that’s as witty as it is shocking...McDonagh rides an improbable line between sophistication and folksiness, delivering a rare tragedy that contains more laughs than sobs...Good old-fashioned playwriting with crafty setups, gratifying payoffs and, most of all, a sharp grasp of the internal and external conflicts that drive us forward and beat us back."
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"The play reveals the author’s relative inexperience through creaky exposition and crude plotting, but it also flaunts his comic audacity and fearless iconoclasm. McDonagh re-creates traditional Irish family drama only to set it ablaze with a postmodern blowtorch...The play still provides a jangly theatrical escape for those who don’t mind when a fable leaves them recoiling."
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"Though director Hynes inscribes funny jokes in the margins, the stately pace of her naturalism seems more deferential, insisting the play has a soul. But it is not a subtle play; gags and intentions are clobbered home. Druid gives it all in a prize production, but the pleasures of the play – symmetry and shock – are the pleasures of pure schlock."
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"McDonagh’s situations and characters are rooted in a reality made up of seemingly small, recurring specifics–brand names, soap-opera titles. In a production as stunningly performed as this, the clever patterning of these particularities allows the action to reach extremes of emotion, even horror, without losing an underpinning bassline beat of laughter....Garry Hynes’s direction is so fine it is invisible–as if nothing on the stage could have been other than it is."
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