Find The Beauty Queen Of Leenane And Other Plays Drafted By Martin McDonagh Rendered As File
on The Beauty Queen of Leenane and Other Plays
The Pillowman and went crazy for McDonagh his work is so incredibly Irish, I have no other way to describe it.
This book brings me to a total of five of his plays that I have raced through in a week's time, I have also just discovered that he is a director as well as a playwright, so this weekend will be filled with In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, where he had the good taste in casting Colin Ferrell.
The Beauty Queen of Leenane
There's a theme in his work, and the theme is elderly people who annoy the shit out of their grown children and neighbors, to the point of death threats see: Johnnypateeenmike in Cripple of Inishmaan and Maureen amp Ray here.
Things to know: Kimberley biscuits are apparently the worst type of all and should only be purchased to torment your irritating housebound mother.
MAG pause: Do me a mug of tea, Ray, Pause. Or a mug of Complan do me, even, Pause. And give it a good stir to get rid of the oul lumps,A Skull in Connemara
RAY: If it was getting rid of oul lumps I was to be, it wouldn't be with Complan I'd be starting.
It would be much closer to home, boy, Oh aye, much closer. A big lump sitting in an oul fecking rockingchair it would be, I'll tell you that!
When Mairtin showed up in a Manchester United shirt, I knew I wouldn't like him.
Then we find out he would like to beat women exceptin' of course, for his bad leg getting in the way and was expelled from school for cooking a hamster alive, so my dislike was extremely justified.
Also, he's a fucking idiot, At least now I know why Ray mentioned the priest slapping him in The Beauty Queen of Leenane "for no reason" he asked about the church cutting "the willies off of corpses they bury and give them to the tinkers to eat".
The Lonesome West
Father WelshWalshWelsh has lost control of his parish, Or never, even once, had control of it to begin with,
GIRLEEN: Father Walsh Welsh has no sense of humour, I'll walk him the road home for himself, and see he doesn't get hit by a cow like the last time,Overall: don't live in this fecking town, because you're likely to get offed by someone you're related to, Reread Beauty Queen in midSeptember for class, Originally read Skull ten years ago Read the other two for the first time a few years back, I think, Witty, irreverent. Just what I expected from the writer of In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths, I found myself laughing out loud, I cannot wait for Banshees, That was one of the most brilliant, disturbing things I have ever read in my entire life, I absolutely loved it and hate myself for loving it so much, Already requested another McDonagh play or two from the library, I liked it. But, it is depressing. It reveals a slice of life that I hope I never experience or encounter! Think I'll switch to a murder mystery or spy thriller to cheer myself up.
Disturbing, dark, cruel, and unusual, these plays are not in the least bit cuddly, but they are definitely funny, McDonagh is one of the most original and clever playwrights today, and this trilogy about the miserable and bitter residents of Leenane make him the Tarantino of the theater worldwell, an IRISH Tarantino.
I bet they'd make good friends, A humorous playscript examining the motherdaughter relationship and the behaviours we adopt and pass on, in that downward spiral of destruction which at one end of the scale can inhibit our ability to develop positive relationships in the future and at the other end eventually lead to destroying lives.
It's hard to critique shit written for stage just by reading it 'cause like, what if it turns
out that your brain is just a shitty director amp cast How embarrassing would that be!
these are pretty decent plays btw These three plays are set in a town in Galway so blighted by rancor, ignorance, and spite that, as the local priest complains, God Himself seems to have no jurisdiction there.
"The Beauty Queen of Leenane" portrays ancient, manipulative Mag and her virginal daughter, Maureen, whose mutual loathing may be more durable than any love.
In "A Skull in Connnemara," Mick Dowd is hired to dig up the bones in the town churchyard, some of which belong to his late and oddly unlamented wife.
And the brothers of "The Lonesome West" have no sooner buried their father than they are resuming the vicious and utterly trivial quarrel that has been the chief activity of their lives.
"McDonagh is the most wickedly funny, brilliantly abrasive young dramatist on either side of the Irish Sea, He is a born storyteller, ""New York Times" Three different plays, all good, all highlighting the dark even mean side of Irish life and culture, "Beauty Queen" is excruciatingly harsh, By turns playful, vicious, and surprising, but throughout completely absorbing, ملکهی زیبایی لینین با ترجمه ی حمید احیا دومین نمایشنامه ای بود که از مارتین مکدونا میخوندم و میتونم بگم که مشتاقم سایر آثارش رو هم بخونم.
شخصیت مورین و یه سری از حسهاش منو یاد کتاب دختر کشیش مینداخت با انتخاب های متفاوت البته
در مورد انتشارات نیلا اضافه کنم که نمایشنامه قبلی مرد بالشی پر از غلط و غلوط بود ولی این یکی تقریبا مشکلی به چشمم نیومد,
تو هر دو نمایشنامه یه تم جنایی هم وجود داشت و اگه به این فضا علاقه مندین خوندنش توصیه میشه Martin McDonagh's psychological dark comedy shines in this trilogy of interconnected stories, From a needy, naggy old woman and her psycho daughter, to a murderous gravedigger asked to dig up his wife's bones, to a pair of brothers whose tale of betrayal, violence, and blackmailed birthright evokes strong Jacob and Esau themes, these plays keep the reader and, I assume, the audience intrigued and hungry for more information to clarify the mysteries.
McDonagh continues to impress me, HOW DOES HE FUCKING DO IT His plays are funny and dark and everything is there for a reason and ARG, I could read his plays all day, I think I may have set my expectations a bit high after the genius of In Bruges, but these are well written, interesting plays.
The titular piece is a surprisingly intense drama, A Skull in Connemara is probably the weakest of the three, it has intriguing characters but a weak final act, while The Lonesome West had probably the most fascinating characters of any of them and was quite powerful though a bit inconsistent.
So damn good, you can't put the book down, His plays characters are riveting, the dialogue suspenseful, and the endings clever and creepy, He's like a male Flannery O'Connor only without the religion or Southern charm, Chilling. Loved every one! Rounded down mainly because the middle play is weak, but the other two are fabulous, I've been a longtime fan of McDonagh's writing, and this book comprises the Leenane Trilogy, some of his earliest plays, I've never seen stageplays interwoven like this: they're set in the same small town, where everyone knows everyone and repercussions/characters are offhand mentioned in subsequent plays, and you really get a sense of this being a real place with real people all trapped in a claustrophobic fishbowl together.
It's like an interlinked anthology, with Easter eggs scattered between the works if you've read/seen all three plays, and even recurring jokes in the first two set up for some payoff in the third.
It's remarkable, and makes it a delight to read all three backtoback,
Since this was such an early work, you can see McDonagh hammering out his craft and developing his toolkit: Chekov's guns galore dramatic irony re: what is or isn't known the audience's imagination filling in the blanks horrifically unreliable characters dark pasts and unexpected turns long epistolary letters narrated.
The trilogy centers on toxic families, pettiness, and vengeance, As is his tradition, it's incredibly dark but also incredibly darkly funny particularly THE LONESOME WEST there are glimmers of occasional hope, but because this is McDonagh, they're obviously gonna be squashed.
THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE
The only one of these three that I'd seen performed beforehand, and also my favourite of the three when I saw it, it left me feeling pretty lost and sad.
It centers on the poisonous relationship between a spinster and the elderly mother she's trapped looking after: the weary abuse between them, the sense of old fights repeated over and over and looping until it hits a breaking point.
It's bittersweet, melancholy, wistful. My heart aches. Plus Pato Dooley is the softest, sweetest character I've ever encountered in a McDonagh text, and I love him:
MAUREEN quietly: It's true I was in a home there a while, now, after a bit of a breakdown I had.
Years ago this is.
PATO: What harm a breakdown, sure Lots of people do have breakdowns,
MAUREEN: A lot of doolally people, aye,
PATO: Not doolally people at all, A lot of welleducated people have breakdowns too, In fact, if you're welleducated it's even more likely, Poor Spike Milligan, isn't he forever having breakdowns He hardly stops, I do have trouble with me nerves every now and then, too, I don't mind admitting, There's no shame at all in that, Only means you do think about things, and take them to heart,
A SKULL IN CONNEMARA
The weakest, There's a couple good reveals, but the central twist/conflict is a little hamhanded compared to McDonagh's usual, and the ending just sort of peters out.
I also had the trouble that, since I was reading rather than watching it performed, I couldn't tell the dialogue apart that easily since/characters' names started with M Mick, Mairtin, Maryjohnny.
THE LONESOME WEST
The funniest, It was great finally meeting Father Welsh Walsh Welsh after so long he was also one of my favourite characters, His horror and exasperation at his disaster of a parish, dogged by murders and suicides, and his last hope of redemption in trying to reconcile two squabbling brothers, Coleman and Valene whose extreme pettiness is astounding and morbidly hilarious.
Poor, poor Welsh. Walsh. It actually reminded a bit of Rickety Cricket in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, in terms of the earnest priest whose life is systematically destroyed by a group of terrible people.
Anyway, do read these plays if you're a fan of dark humour and twisted plots and seeing how toxic families combust.
It's good stuff. .
Martin McDonagh