Western Ontario Drama League (WODL) Festival is an annual
celebration of community theatre in South-western Ontario.
This year's Festival is co-hosted by the Guelph Little Theatre
and the Elmira Theatre Company.
The adjudicator for the Festival is Maja Ardal.
THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE
by Martin McDonagh
Directed by Robin Bennett
Presented by Guelph Little Theatre
The title of Martin McDonagh's play conjures up images of Irish folklore, lilting speech on the verge of song, young love, and happy endings.
This just proves that titles can be very misleading.
To be sure, the story does take place in the west of the Emerald Isle but the two main characters in it are at best unpleasant and at worst... I guess "psychotic" might be a good word.
(In case you can't tell, I do not like this script at
all -- but that has no bearing on the review!)
The Guelph Little Theatre's production accurately captured the claustrophobic, hall-of-mirrors feeling of the script, where everything appears turned inside out and backwards, and the audience can never quite tell who is lying and who (if anyone) isn't.
The set offered us a small combined sitting room and kitchen, with two doors and one window -- but the window was fairly high in the wall and covered in what appeared to be bright blue lighting gel material. The effect ended up looking like a one-way window, and suggesting (to me) a glass case in a scientific laboratory of human behaviour -- an odd choice for what's supposed to be a country cottage in one of the more impoverished parts of Ireland.
Note: I found out the morning after the show that the window was
a last-minute patch-up job following damage to the original.
This sort of emergency repair is totally familiar to anyone who
has ever worked backstage in theatre.
The rest of the room -- dingy walls, grimy furnishings, hand-me-down table and mismatched chairs -- clearly telegraphed the poverty and grimness of life here.
The costumes suited the characters very well, with one glaring exception: the spiffy, stylish suit worn by Pato Dooley in the scene after the party in Act 1. The script clearly underlines the poverty and lack of work in the region where the story occurs. Pato's letter speech at the beginning of Act 2 points out that he works in construction, and it sounds as if he's pretty much at the bottom of the heap on his worksite. The neat appearance of the suit suggests a well-placed young man in either the business world or the professions, and strongly contradicts what the text tells us. A mismatched jacket and trousers, with more breaking down or visible signs of wear, would be a clearer choice here.
A clear use of Irish accents is an absolute necessity to the proper effect of this script. Some of the actors were stronger and more consistent than others in this respect.
In the central role of Maureen Folan, Cora Kennedy gave a strong performance. In handling Maureen's switches in and out of sanity, Kennedy opted generally for a quick leap of extremes. In some situations, like the moment when she detects her mother's lies about the letter, this worked really well. In the context of her morning-after scene with Pato, it was less effective. On the other hand, her slow transition into becoming her mother in the final scene was fascinating to witness. Vocally, Kennedy's delivery of text speeded up in her quick shifts and some lines got partially lost as a result.
Her mother, Mag Folan, was played by Cathy Moore with excellent physical presence. Her voice grated on the nerves to such an extent that one could easily understand why her every word was so enervating to Maureen. When Mag was acting as the "helpless invalid," Moore's actions, expressions, and voice were spot on. When the script called for her to be more cunning or devious, Moore's performance became a little more over the top -- an almost cartoonish "hee-hee" facial expression was too quickly switched on, and I did not find it convincing. A subtler blend of the two parts of Mag's personality would work wonders.
When the scene came in which Maureen burned Mag, I found the whole sequence elapsed a little too quickly. I'm not suggesting lingering sadistically over the horror, but taking the climax of the scene just 5 percent slower would pay big dividends in terms of impact.
What these two actors did achieve was to set many of us wondering just what had happened to make both Maureen and Mag such an ugly, miserable pair of curmudgeons. Who was out to get whom, and why? Which one was the monster, and which the victim? And just what role did Maureen's father, never seen nor mentioned, play in creating the whole awful situation? Questions like these would make for stimulating discussions in the rehearsal room.
Of the two Dooley brothers from across the way, Ray (played by Jimmy Omino) is the shallower, more self-absorbed, while Pato (John Cormier) is a deeper thinker, and more thoughtful of others.
Omino's performance of Ray occasionally suffered from too-rapid delivery of the text, which obscured some lines. He had good presence in the scene where Mag persuades him to hand over Pato's letter, and his rant at Maureen about his stolen ball in the final scene was a good bit of comic relief after what we'd gone through.
Cormier clearly presented the complex, sometimes conflicting emotions of Pato Dooley, beginning with his buoyant mood when he calls Maureen "the Beauty Queen of Leenane," and most of all the uncertainty he's left with on his final departure for Boston. His delivery of the entire letter scene, seated in a tight spotlight, was a peak moment in his performance.
Director Robin Bennett has brought this company together in a tight, well-integrated performance of an unusually challenging script. Like many of the audience, I can't honestly say I enjoyed it, but I did admire the power and darkness of this production.
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