Seeing Mcdouble Two Martin Mcdonagh Plays, ‘The Cripple Of Inishmaan’ And ‘The Beauty Queen Of Leenane,’ Begin Runs In Spokane

You might say that Martin McDonagh, 29, the hottest playwright in London and New York, is now the hottest playwright in greater downtown Spokane.

Two McDonagh plays, “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” and “The Cripple of Inishmaan,” open on Friday at, respectively, the Interplayers Ensemble and the Spokane Civic Theatre’s Studio Theatre.

Going from zero McDonagh productions to two in the space of one night will give Spokane audiences the chance to share in one of the most heated debates of contemporary theater. Is McDonagh “the most promising playwright to have emerged in Britain over the past 10 years,” as one London critic has said, or is he “creepy” and “synthetic,” as other critics have said?

“Mr. McDonagh could be either the most original, seriously pertinent Irish playwright in years, or a scrappy sort of con artist,” wrote Vincent Canby in the New York Times in 1998.

The answer is still up in the air, and hopelessly subjective anyway. The only thing bordering on a consensus so far is that the man himself has a talent for being obnoxious. He has irritated much of the theater establishment by claiming that he’d rather be writing movies (“I was reduced to going into theater,” he told the New York Times Magazine). He also lost style points by getting into a drunken scrap with Sean Connery at a London awards banquet (“If you ever meet him, don’t say anything bad about the royal family,” McDonagh later said).

The consensus on his breakthrough success, “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” is far more positive. It came out of nowhere to be a smash hit for the Druid Theatre in Galway, Ireland, and then repeated that success in London and New York.

In a laudatory New York Times review, Ben Brantley wrote, “What Mr. Donagh has provided is something exotic in today’s world of self-conscious, style-obsessed theater: a proper, perfectly plotted drama that sets out, above all, to tell a story as convincingly and disarmingly as possible.”

He said it was “like sitting down to a square meal after a long diet of salads and hors d’oeuvres.”

It’s about a middle-aged woman in rural Ireland who feels as if she is sacrificing her happiness to take care of her sick but domineering mother. She is offered a last chance at love.

This sounds like a standard tear-jerker plot, but in McDonagh’s hands it becomes more like a toxic black comedy.

“He has a master’s hand at building up and subverting expectations in a cat-and-mouse game with the audience, of seeming to follow a conventional formula and then standing it on its head,” wrote Brantley.

It won numerous Tony awards as well as Drama Desk, Drama League, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel awards.

“The Cripple of Inishmaan,” the second of McDonagh’s plays to cross the pond, is about a young Irish man whose form has been twisted by disease and who is known to the other villagers as Cripple Billy. When filmmaker Robert Flaherty announces in 1934 that he will be arriving to film a Hollywood movie, “The Man of Aran,” Billy sees this as an escape route from his boring life.

In this play, too, McDonagh plays games with the audience’s expectations, indulging in what Brantley calls some “unsettlingly surprising demonstrations of both affection and aggression.”

Both plays are set in rural Ireland and are filled with colorful Irish characters, yet McDonagh is actually more a creature of London. His parents were from western Ireland, but they moved to London where Martin was raised. Yet McDonagh never had much success with his writing until he started setting his pieces in his parents’ home territory.

“It just started coming out as soon as I began hearing my uncles’ voices saying the words,” McDonagh told the New York Times Magazine.

The Interplayers’ production of “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” is directed by co-founder Robert Welch. The ensemble’s other co-founder, Joan Welch, plays the mother, Mag Folan. Amy Perry, an Interplayers veteran, will play the daughter, Maureen. Other roles will be played by Michael Denini and Scott Nath.

The Studio Theatre’s production of “The Cripple of Inishmaan” is directed by Jack Delehanty, and features Sarah Keller, Susan Creed, Brad Picard, Joe Mazzi, Bill Childress, Meghan Wittman, Stuart McKenzie, Scott Cooper and Judi Pratt.

This sidebar appeared with the story: ON STAGE McDonagh plays

`Beauty Queen of Leenane’

“The Beauty Queen of Leenane” opens Friday at the Interplayers Ensemble and continues through Feb. 19. Curtain times are 8 p.m on Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday, Wednesday and Feb. 5. Tickets are $17.45 and $15.10 for evening performances, $13.90 for matinees. The opening night performance is discounted, at $13.90. Tickets for patrons under 25 are $10 for any performance. The Lunch Hour Hot Tix program offers tickets for $10 every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between the hours of noon and 1 p.m. at the theater box office for that night’s performance only, maximum of two tickets. 174 S. Howard. For tickets call 455-PLAY or visit www.interplayers.com.

`The Cripple of Inishmaan’

“The Cripple of Inishmaan” opens Friday at the Firth Chew Studio Theatre at the Spokane Civic Theatre and continues Saturday and again on next Thursday and Feb. 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 17, 18 and 19. All shows are at 8 p.m. except the Feb. 6 matinee. Tickets are $8 general admission, available by calling 325-2507 or (800) 446-9576. 1020 N. Howard.