Shocks in store at dark comedy
Ingrid Craigie was in Sweet Bird in Chichester Festival Theatre’s main house a few years ago; now comes her Minerva Theatre debut in TheBeautyQueenofLeenane by Martin McDonagh.
A co-production between the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre and Chichester Festival Theatre, it plays the Minerva until October 2 and then London from October 9 to November 6. And Ingrid is delighted to play two such different venues, the Lyric a Matcham theatre, the Minerva, of course, much moremodern,butbothgiving theplaytheintimacyitneeds.
“It is a fantastic play. I know Martin’s work obviously. I was in Cripple and we took it to Broadway. Butthisonehewrotewhenhe was 25 which is unbelievable. The more we look at it, the more incredible it is. It is so beautifully written, but it doesn’t feel like a young man’s play. It feels like quite a mature person’s play. You can feelthegreatenergyofayoung man, but the relationship is so beautifully observed. It is a toxic co-dependency between an older woman and her daughter… You really wouldn’t think of a young man writing it.”
In the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, Maureen Folan – a plain, lonely woman, tied to her manipulative and ageing mother, Mag – comes alive at her first and possibly last prospect of a new life. But Mag has other ideas, and her interference sets in motion a train of events that leads inexorably towards the play’s breath-taking conclusion.
“I have seen it before,” Ingrid said. “I had seen the original production in 1996, and it was a shock. The shock was the subversion of it. You thinkyouareseeingonething, but you actually you are not. He confounds expectations, I think. But the beauty is also Martin’s language, his characters, his surprises and then also the humour.”