A profoundly moving play - 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane'

I firmly believe that those involved in politics or in any attempt to change society should always have a connection to culture. In my case I have tried my hand at poetry and gave several public poetry readings in my younger days. I also tried writing plays and had a one act play performed at a theatre in London. Being a Dubliner I also have always had a strong connection with literature and the theatre. Dublin is after all the city of Joyce, Shaw, Wilde and Beckett as well as a host of other writers.

I had wanted for some time to see the Irish writer Martin Mc Donagh's play 'The Beauty Queen of Leenane' which is currently running at the Young Vic theatre in London. Last year I tried for tickets but all performances were booked out. The play has already toured Broadway, London and, of course, the main theatres in Ireland such as the Abbey (Ireland's national theatre) in Dublin. Everywhere it has received rave reviews and I was really desperate to see it. As luck would have it the charity I work for received some free tickets for carers and a trip to the Young Vic was organised. At the last minute some tickets were left free and I was able to go and see the play, which I did on Wednesday.

It was appropriate that the carers group went to see the play for the play deals essentially with the role of a carer and her mother. The daughter (who is the beauty queen) and her mother live in a remote rural area of Connemara on the west coast of Ireland. I would imagine that the play is set in the 1980s for it seems an Ireland which predates the Celtic Tiger years. The mother who claims to be ill and unable to look after herself is scheming, selfish and manipulative and is one of the most unsympathetic characters imaginable. The daughter who is already 40 sees herself trapped forever alone with her mother with no emotional life outside of this smothering relationship. Suddenly a means of escape appears in the person of neighbour's son who is working on the building sites in London but comes back to the village on holiday. The play revolves around the mother's attempt to smash the relationship and to ensure that the daughter will remain with her until her death.

But the play also deals with issues common to many Irish writers and which still impinge deeply on the consciousness and memory of Irish people. These include emigration and social isolation in the new country, images of Britain and America, the grinding loneliness and isolation in rural areas and the innate conservatism, along with expectations on daughters especially to care for elderly parents, as well as mental illness which often results from such conditions. All of these are dealt with in both a profoundly moving as well as a somtimes comical manner and there are some great one liners and ripostes in the play. Not for nothing has this been described as one of the best contemporary Irish plays. The ending is both shocking and heart rending and I would recommend anyone who can, particularly anyone with an interest in Ireland, to go and see it.

I include here a trailer for the play from a production at the Lyceum Theater in Edinburgh. The Young Vic production has a different cast and the mother is played by the fantastic actress, Rosaleen Linehan.