Theater Reviews—

‘Leenane’ Proves Once Again Why

We’re Lucky To Have TheatreWorks

By Julie Stern

NEW MILFORD — For the past two years, TheatreWorks New Milford has been staging parts of Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s Leenane trilogy, culminating in its current production of what was actually the first play in the set, The Beauty Queen of Leeneane.

While A Skull in Connemara and The Lonesome West combine harsh realism with black humor in fairly equal portions,  Leeneane is definitely the grimmest and most painful of the lot.

In the wrong hands – or even in merely adequate ones – this would be simply a miserably depressing downer. Instead, director Richard Pettibone has guided his cast of four experienced players to an interpretation that is both flawless and fascinating.

 Beauty Queen is the story of Maureen Folan, a lonely spinster whose life is trapped in a resentful, hate-driven relationship with her elderly mother, Mag. Set in an isolated farmhouse in a bleak coastal village in western Ireland, the play’s “humor” derives from the petty cruelties and passive aggressive tactics the two use to annoy each other.

However, when Mag feels threatened by the possibility of forty-year-old Maureen having a last chance for romance in her life, a chain of events is set in motion that is shockingly vicious and horrific.

Ellen Burnett is by turns cagey, manipulative and downright vile in the central role as the querulous Mag.

Amy Clyde radiates suppressed tension and desperation as Maureen.

Bruce Thomson is shyly and sheepishly decent as the middle-aged bachelor, Pato Dooley, and Aaron Kaplan gives his best performance yet as Pato’s shiftless younger brother, Ray.

Artistic director Bill Hughes has contributed another of his lovingly detailed and finely crafted realistic sets. The total effect is less that you are seeing a play, than that you are being transported into an entire world.

TheatreWorks New Milford just continues to get better and better, allowing the group to take chances and venture into stranger and darker territory than most companies, amateur or professional, should ever dare to explore. We, the audience, are all the luckier for that.

(Performances continues weekends through May 22. Contact TheatreWorks at 860-350-6863 for curtain details.

The theater is at 5 Brookside Avenue, just off Route 202.)