Martin McDonagh – THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF LEENANE – October 13 at 8 PM – STUDIO STAGE

Martin McDonagh was born in London in 1971. He works as a resident playwright at the Royal National Theatre in London. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Most Promising Playwright Award, four Tony Awards for “The Beauty Queen of Leenane”, which was performed on Broadway, and an Olivier Award for “The Pillowman”.

Translation: Đorđe Krivokapić

Adaptation/Direction: Ana Vukotić

Production Design: Jelena Tomašević

Cast:

Ana Vujošević

Dragica Tomas/Marta Pićurić

Dejan Ivanić

Zoran Vujović

(Ana Vukotić’s graduation production at the Directing Department of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Cetinje, in the class of Prof. Egon Savin and Prof. Radmila Vojvodić).

Premiere: 13. X 2004, Podgorica, Studio Stage.

Martin McDonagh is a kind of miracle of contemporary theatre. He left school at the age of sixteen and spent several years writing radio plays. He wrote “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” in eight days. At the time of the premiere of this play in 1997, he was twenty-seven years old, and four more of his plays were being performed in London. He was the only playwright after Shakespeare to achieve this.

He considered the London theatre scene boring to the core — he called it “nonsense”. He admits that he was influenced by David Mamet, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Terrence Malick and Quentin Tarantino.

“The Beauty Queen of Leenane” is the first part of a trilogy of plays set in the small town of Leenane in the northern Irish islands, where the Irish language is still spoken. The other two plays are “Skull in Connemara” and “The Lonesome West”, both also written in 1997.

He wrote another trilogy set in the same Irish region, the most famous of which is “The Cripple of Inishmaan”. His latest play, “The Pillowman”, premiered at the National Theatre in London and is performed around the world.

When asked how long he would continue to explore despair and violence in his plays, McDonagh replied: “I will write a romantic comedy someday in which almost nobody gets killed.”