The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Ireland’s esteemed theater company Druid marks its BAM debut with this 20th-anniversary revival of Martin McDonagh’s Tony Award-winning, pitch-black comedy. The first in a trilogy of plays set in the provincial Irish town of Leenane, it tells the story of spinster Maureen Folan. She lives with her manipulative, aging mother Mag. They spend their days aggressively nagging, scratching, and jabbing each other with insults. But when Maureen meets a viable suitor who is smitten with her, Mag sets in motion a chain of events that hilariously and horrifyingly threaten her daughter’s last likely chance at a romantic relationship. Not to be outdone, Maureen plots and enacts a chilling revenge — an action that ultimately seals her purgatorial existence.