May ya be half an hour in heaven before the devil knows you’re dead. May ya be half an hour into this Martin McDonagh dark drama before you know what you’ve gotten yourself into. Maryland Ensemble Theatre picks up its 2025/2026 season with the deliciously dark work of McDonagh, to whom they are no strangers, this time with The Beauty Queen of Leenane, directed by Elizabeth van den Berg. Perception is a tricky thing, reality even more so when your perception is colored and molded by the strife that surrounds your dull as ditchwater everyday life. It’s an evocative and darkly twisting and almost suspenseful production, well worth experiencing (enjoying feels like the absolute wrong word here but it is a thoroughly impressive theatrical endeavor.)
Scenic Designer Eric Bierninghausen crafts a most claustrophobic interior for Mag and Maureen’s household. The detailing in Bierninghausen’s work is quite striking; the stucco-textured walls, the grain-paint on the cabinet, it all comes together to create this ordinary, stuffy kitchen interior of a ruddy little house atop a high hill in Irish countryside. The way Bierninghausen has pulled the set forward, almost ramming it against the front row of the house’s seating bank intensifies this closed-in feeling, generating that deliciously uncomfortable sense of being trapped, which is a direct mirror to Maureen’s existence inside the drama. Add to this sinister set the extraordinary aural and visual craft of Lighting Designer Doug Grove and Sound Designer Kevin Lloyd and you have a thoroughly thrilling stage experience. Particularly when Grove and Lloyd are collaborating to create the effects of the rainy weather events, you feel as if it might actually be raining outside, further oppressing the characters in the shabby little shack they call home. Lloyd’s balance work, especially with the radio (and Grove’s work with the ‘flickering tv’, come to that), is extremely impressive, feeling authentic and believable.
Director Elizabeth van den Berg, who also serves as the show’s dialect coach, keeps her four actors sounding authentically Irish. If there’s a slip here or there it’s hardly noticeable. And for the most part, van den Berg’s pacing of the show is quite tight. There’s a moment or two in the first act where the pacing just seems to trail off and its hard to say how that could be fixed without creating a sense of unnecessary urgency or rushing in that scene; chalk it up to a gap in McDonagh’s momentum rather than van den Berg’s directing or the performances being given by the actors on stage. Intimacy Choreographer Megan Behm creates works with half of the actors (it’s a four-character show) to create breathtaking, believable moments of flirting and tension; you see Behm’s efficacy in action between the Maureen and Pato characters in the middle of the first act and it heightens the overall theatrical experience as it marries beautifully into the chaos of everything else that happens in the production. While there isn’t ‘fighting’ in the traditional sense, McDonagh’s work is rife with verbal sparring and a bit of…let’s call it violence…which Fight Director Casey Kaleba executes with frightening authenticity. It’s in the second act (and when it happens it’s poppin’ and rockin’ #IYKYK) and it exudes such a vibe of genuine violence that it really might require a trigger warning, though there isn’t any blood featured in that scene. (The…effect…of that scene deserves combination praises to van den Berg and Properties Designer Lori Boyd.)
If there’s a complaint to be had for the production, other than that odd lull in the pacing, it’s the…for lack of better wording and not wanting to spoil anything… reveal near the end of the performance. There’s a specific aesthetic that is revealed to the audience, or at least to the very front row and to those seated in the raised seats at the back of the house. If you’re in the second or third row you mostly miss this ‘reveal’ entirely because of staging and the positioning of the character when it happens. (You do get to note it in full during the curtain call, however.) And as the effect is such a pivotal moment of ‘revealing’ when it happens it’s a shame that half the audience doesn’t get to experience it in its entirety.
A four-person show presents a series of challenges, particularly with the uniquely warped dynamic McDonagh has written between the characters. These challenges are well-met by this cast of seasoned performers under the guidance and direction of Elizabeth van den Berg. Willem Rogers, playing Ray Dooley, effortlessly channels that agitated youthful energy of a petulant lad who’s old enough to know better but not fully arrived at maturity of manhood. He’s biting in his retorts and particularly physically fidgety, which serves the character well as every scene his agitation level seems to escalate exponentially. At one point the character goes off on a tear, saying “I don’t want to be here.” And Rogers delivers it so stoically and with such biting intent that it could arguably be one of the funniest moments in the show.
Pato Dooley (Bill Dennison), the elder brother of Ray, is a curiously complex character, if one that’s given less stage time than the two female characters. There is a racy yet innocent flirtation that builds between Dennison’s Pato and Gené Fouché’s Maureen, which turns into something wholly awkward and equally humorous for the ‘morning after’ moment, as the Mag character is intentionally jammed into the cross-fire. You get a sense of Dennison’s development of character at the top of the first scene of the second act where he’s seated alone at the table, downing liquid courage in an attempt to confess all his pathos in a letter. There’s a sincerity to this moment that really speaks volumes about Dennison’s understanding of the character.
As Maureen, Gené Fouché delivers a complex and dynamic portrayal of a woman whose life has stalled out in third gear. When she has her momentary breakdown, recalling the breakdown of her past, it’s an evocative and visceral exploration of the character’s internalized darkness. Fouché as an exemplary character study in how to create versatility from static; the character of Maureen could very easily be played (and consequently written off as) one-dimensional but Fouché finds nuanced layers and depth in her portrayal with subtlety. The initial barbs and jibes at Mag (Julie Herber) feel almost loving and well-intended. Until they don’t. The tension that the pair builds during the “who’s putting who on” exchange as the ‘night prior’ gets discussed is an exhilarating moment as the audience watches to see who’s going to give away their position first. And in her lone monologue as Fouché paces gracefully around the stage, you get this brutal and unrelentingly sinking feeling that just settled under your skin and seeps into your bones, listening to her gas on; it’s unnerving. Not to mention, he symbolic syzygy of the way that penultimate moment comes together, with Fouché ‘s Maureen gently sinking back into the rocking chair as the realization of reality hits her, is striking and exquisitely effective. It beautifully displays van de Berg’s understanding of Martin McDonagh’s dramatic build-up to the skydive-paced denouement as well as Fouché’s handle and understanding of the Maureen character.
As for Julie Herber in the role of Mag, it’s the indescribable phenomenon of watching the wreckage of an accident when you pass it by. Herber’s extraordinary performance is enthralling, even if her character is…less than savory…and when ‘bad things’ are happening (or about to) whether they be as a result of Mag’s behavior or in spite of it…you cannot look away. The physicality that Herber brings to the table really creates a vivid and authentic presentation of a 70-year-old whose mind may or may not have wandered but whose meddlesome intentions are sharper than a tack. The mincing shuffle she scrapes across the floor with when she moves, the trembling and perpetually twitch-shaking hand, the far-away glossy-eyed glazed look that so frequently crosses her features; it’s all superb and builds into the striking surprises that lie in store for both the plot and the character. And Herber’s accent, much like Dennison, Fouché, and Rogers, is spot on. Her interactions with the Ray Dooley character are as scratchy and unsettling as her raging moments of insanity are with the Maureen character. It’s a delight to watch even if much of it is very hard to swallow.
Visceral is the word best used to describe the experience as a whole. These actors do an impressive job of getting you to turn the events of reality…and perception of reality…over in your mind quote thoroughly and the darkness is intricately woven into the plot in such a way that you don’t even realize you’ve been consumed by it until the whole experience is bathed in unshakeable shadows. Definitely a must-see; The Beauty Queen of Leenane is unsettlingly discomforting and makes for an excellent afternoon of evocative theatre.
Running Time: 2 hours with one intermission
The Beauty Queen of Leenane plays through March 2nd 2025 on the Main Stage of the Maryland Ensemble Theatre in the Historic FSK Hotel building— 31 W. Patrick street in downtown historic Frederick, MD. For tickets call the box office at (301) 694-4744 or purchase them online.
