The Beauty Queen

WARNING! Age limit 18+

The name of the British playwright of Irish origin, Martin McDonagh, does not need any additional comments. The works of this Oscar-winning author adorn the posters of almost all the leading theaters in the world. Among the most respected plays by McDonagh, “The Beauty Queen of Leanan” certainly holds the palm of primacy.

This dramatic work had immediately a wild success. One of the first productions was in 1996 on the stage of the Royal Theater in London. And two years later, “Queen of Beauty” conquers New York Broadway. From that time, the triumphal release of “Queen” began on a planetary scale.

Soon the audience from Sumy will be able to watch “The Beauty Queen”. The production of the well-known work on the stage of the National Academic Theater named after M. S. Shchepkin was carried out by the young director Dmytro Demkov, known in Ukraine for many creative projects. According to him, McDonagh’s work is attractive due to its closeness to the worldview of the classics.

To realize his creative goal, McDonagh chooses a distant hinterland, in which poverty, longing, despair and cruelty constantly live. It is here, on a small patch of abandoned territory, live old mother Meg and her adult daughter Maureen for many years.

Maureen’s sisters have found their family happiness a long time ago, but she remains alone with her loneliness. And when she finally smiles at the edge of happiness (love for Pato), her mother becomes an obstacle to the realization of her dream. The relationship between two blood relatives turns into a terrible drama and eventually finds a tragic outcome.

Director Demkov filled the stage space with a large number of directing techniques. A sick nervous impulse is embodied in the image of a 20-year-old boy Ray Dooley who is filled with a cynical disgust for the world around him and a desire to defend his small right to individual freedom. At the same time, the surrounding environment seems to provoke him all the time to raise the degree of hysterics, because it is a constant source of aggression and cynicism that prompts him to use drugs.

The performance is filled with original scenography, which metaphorically emphasizes the confrontation of two principles in man and the world which which called the ratio of good and evil, in which there are never clear winners. The figurative background is successfully complemented by the elements of the Japanese theater school. Thus, the image of a tyrannical mother is conveyed through a doll/entity controlled by an invisible puppeteer, who represents the dark side of the past that left its mark.

The storyline is built in an atmosphere of informational violence, embodied in the image of an old TV. During the action, it almost does not turn off and is a source of permanent bad news. In this way, the author emphasizes how a violent model of behavior becomes one of the main motivators of people’s behavior in society and gradually regenerates society.

The play “The Beauty Queen” by Shchepkints broadcasts a complex theatrical code to the audience, which will be quite interesting to explore for the modern viewer. It turned out to be a modern performance of the European format, and we are sure it will be interesting for both the young and the older generation.

Дійові особи та виконавці: