The dark side of a Beauty Queen

On Nov. 21, the stage at the Sullivan Malhoney Courthouse Theater in St. Catharines will play host to the Lyndesfarne Theater Project. This group of talented actors is joining forces to bring to life Martin McDonagh's critically acclaimed play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane.
Written in only eight days, this play brought 25-year-old McDonagh international success, where he is especially praised for his unique ability to create characters that are both strange and fascinatingly real.
In The Beauty Queen of Leenane, McDonagh uses dark humor as a clever tool in which to draw the audience deeper and deeper into the cruel and twisted relationship between Mag and Maureen Falon, the two main characters which the play revolves around.
At 40 years of age, Maureen is the last child to be living in her mother's house. Suffering from a mental disorder, it seems that the only prospect for her is to care for her manipulative, elderly mother. When Maureen meets up with her childhood friend Pato - a lonely construction worker who has returned from England - there seems to be a glimpse of hope that things might change for Maureen in the future.
Graeme Somerville, who plays the part of Pato, said that Maureen and Pato "sort of spark and court and end up here; that's where the play begins".
What follows is an intensely dark and toxic look at the disintegration of an already shattered mother-daughter relationship. Kelly Daniels, who plays the part of Maureen, was originally drawn to this play because of its dark humour. She was working in Winnipeg at the time and only had the chance to see the first act of the play. Years later, she finally read it.
"I finally got to see the second act and it just blew me away. Oh my god, it was just so shocking," said Daniels. "The things that the mother and daughter do to each other are awful, it's just awful."
Somerville agrees that what makes this play so different is the gruesome moments that go seamlessly hand in hand with the love story.
"The piece itself is tight, it's dark, there are certainly moments when you're reading through it and it makes you reel a bit. It gets pretty gruesome at points," he said.
With the play addressing as many intense subjects as it does, each actor and actress has found a unique way in which to make the character their own, while keeping it as honest as possible. Daniels believes that you can take what you have experienced in your own life and find parallels with the life of the characters, making the character more realistic. It is not necessary, however, to have actually experienced the specifics of the character's life, for the parallels to be found.
"Jodi Foster didn't go out and get herself gang-raped when she played in The Accused," said Daniels.
Even though her mother has never betrayed her, as her character's has in the play, she knows what this feels like on a personal level, and to Daniels this is an important part of the process.
Daniels put it into words perfectly when she said, "It's like breathing in the words and letting them percolate and then giving them back out, letting them become me".
Tickets for The Beauty Queen of Leenane start at only $10 for students, and Tuesday nights are 'pay what you can' so even the poorest of students can enjoy the theater. As an extra special bonus, Friday nights is the "Strega Student Sorrier". With your ticket purchase you also gain entry to Strega Café after the performance for food and drinks with the cast and crew.
The Beauty Queen of Leenane runs from Nov. 21 to Dec. 6 at the Sullivan Mahoney Courthouse Theatre in St. Catharines.