Word: queene
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Yanks do love the Irish," contemplates Maureen Folan near the end of Martin McDonagh's 1996 play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Indeed, nothing proves this fact so much as the remarkable success of McDonagh's play, which, since its debut four years ago, has garnered four Tony awards and helped to secure McDonagh's reputation on both sides of the Atlantic as one of the most promising young playwrights of his generation. Eric Engel's new direction of the play, currently running at the Boston Center for the Arts, proves the mettle of McDonagh's script. Presented...
Admittedly, the plot line of The Beauty Queen of Leenane is not breathtakingly original. Set in the 1960s in the obscure village of Leenane in the county Connemara, it tells the story of a prototypical dysfunctional family. Maureen Folan is a forty-year-old woman stuck in a dismal job and still living with her mother in a tiny countryside shanty. Mag Folan is a crotchety 70 year old with a urinary infection and a nasty habit of emptying her bedpan in the dish sink. Maureen is offered a route of escape when Pato Dooley, a man of roughly...
...whatever cliches of class and setting McDonagh may help perpetuate in The Beauty Queen of Leenane, there is no denying the efficacy of his script and the tremendous complexity of his characters. And with compelling productions like Engel's to affirm the play's quality, the line at the box office will certainly not be slowing anytime soon...
...BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE...
...looking for something a little further from home, then take a walk to the Fogg Museum Indoor Courtyard to see Antonio Cesti's baroque opera Orontea. Produced by the Harvard Early Music Society and performed with period instruments, Orontea tells the story of an Egyptian queen who vows that she will never marry. But of course such a vow is bound to change. This is opera, after all. Complications ensue but at last nupital vows prevail. Look at today's preview story for more information...