The first two parts of the Leenane trilogy (The Beauty Queen of Leenane and A
Skull in Connemara) were both produced to great acclaim by Mull theatre in 2001
and 2002. The Lonesome West, said to be Martin McDonagh’s finest so far, is a
hilarious play set in the outrageously dysfunctional, cloistered yet mythical
west Irish landscape. The play opens at the Masonic Hall,
Tobermory, Isle of Mull, on Thursday July 1 at 8pm.
Martin McDonagh is one of the most exciting playwrights to emerge in many
years. With their surreal, satirical madness, his plays have the audience
leaving theatres in stitches, but not knowing or feeling too good about why.
The Lonesome West tells the story of Valene and Coleman, two brothers living
together in their father’s house after his untimely demise. That demise came
about due to the fact that Coleman had “accidentally” blown his head off with a
shotgun!
In this small west Irish community, as arid of mind as it is bleak in
landscape, and where emotions are constricted by circumstances, brothers Coleman
and Valene live clutched in their cottage, bound in a childish resentment. As
the parish priest keeps pouring his guilt all over them, and the local lass with
adolescent affections finds no suitable expression for them, the pair bicker and
rage. They can argue with babyish intensity over a pack of crisps or, with the
innocent intensity of childish vindictiveness, can take revenge on inanimate
objects, prized possessions and beloved pets.
Reviews for Mull Theatre’s Skull in Connemara by Martin
McDonagh:
“Gut-achingly funny…a fine production of one of the
funniest and sharpest plays of the 90s”
THE SCOTSMAN Joyce McMillan
“…5-star theatre all round…”
EdinburghGuide.com Thelma
Good
“Mull Theatre has pulled off an ambitiously staged
production…”
METRO Shona Craven
Says Artistic Director Alasdair McCrone:
“Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau,
Apollo and Hercules, Romulus and Remus, Noel and Liam Gallagher… The history of
civilisation is littered with stories of brothers who haven’t got along too
well. And in The Lonesome West, the elements of classical tragedy and
contemporary pettiness meld in bleak, tit-for-tat violence and recrimination
which exposes the very worst in human nature. Yet this is an extremely funny and
sometimes moving play with a heart and a soul. Even in its darkest moments,
there are flickers of light and hope.
“McDonagh's London-Irish upbringing has given him a distance from his
spiritual homeland, giving rise to a creative freedom that native Irish writers,
even exiles, have fought hard to find. From that freedom springs both a respect
for Irish literacy and dramatic traditions - and an irreverence towards them.
Thus far, his work has been concerned primarily with taking a scalpel to the
remarkably enduring myth of an Arcadian Ireland that he, like Synge before him,
has laid bare to reveal a dark, insular place of suppurating spite, internecine
family feuding and simmering violence. He has set his plays in the only Irish
places he knows intimately: the Aran Islands and Connemara, two of the most
mythologised and elementally beautiful areas of rural Ireland. As one critic put
it, ‘Murder, solitude and rain are what bind the plays in the Leenane trilogy
together.’”
For more information contact Sheena Miller: 01688 302828 marketing@mulltheatre.com
