| THEATRE REVIEWS
Sweet success for intelligent drama
The Sugar Wife
London’s Soho theatre is set to be packed to the rafters with the
British premiere of The Sugar Wife. Set amongst Dublin’s Quaker
community in the late 1840s, The Sugar Wife is a new play produced by
the acclaimed Dublin theatre company Rough Magic.
It asks how we should live in an affluent but compromised society,
resonating with contemporary dilemmas.
Aspirations to live ethically struggle alongside the need to make a
living.
Characters pick and choose which morals to adhere to and which charities
to support as a way to justify their privileges.
Hannah Tewkley is torn between her work with the city’s poor and her
husband’s prospering business — a string of oriental teahouses. Their
guests — an English philanthropist and an African American — are tainted
by the horrors of America’s deep-south.
The visit begins with the best of intentions but results in everyone
reassessing their values, relationships and the way they live their
lives.
The Sugar Wife sees public facades clash with personal desires as truth,
duty and expectations are questioned.
Other Rough Magic Productions include Improbable Frequency, Take Me Away
and Midden.
An intelligent piece of drama.
Grainne McLoughlin
- Starring Barry Barnes, Sarah-Jane Drummey and Cathy Belton.
Directed by Elizabeth Kuti.
The Sugar Wife runs at the Soho Theatre from January 17 to February 11.
For further information contact the box office on 0870 429 6883 or
www.sohotheatre.com
A tale of fear and loathing
The Beauty Queen of Leenane
Martin McDonagh’s haunting and award-winning play The Beauty Queen of
Leenane is set to bring life to the Watford Theatre next month.
Set in in a country cottage in the small town of Leenane in Connemara,
Co. Galway the play explores the world of a manipulative old mother, Mag,
and her lonely spinster daughter Maureen.
They both live in a mutually vindictive and dependent existence fuelled
by Mag’s fear of abandonment and her daughter’s desire to escape her
desperate situation.
The audience are sure to quickly get caught up in the fantasy and
twisted reality of delivered but unread letters, intercepted and
distorted messages — but will they know which side to take?
With the introduction of Pato Dooley who takes a shine to Maureen things
become more interesting. And the question remains: Will Maureen’s last
chance to win love and escape her burdened life be ruined by her
ruthless and self-pitying mother?
As high comedy gives way to edge-of-the-seat tension the audience see
Maureen attempt to satisfy her unimaginable anger in this bleakly funny
horror story.
This hilarious tragedy won McDonagh numerous credits including the
Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright.
His recent plays include national tours of The Lieutenant Of Inishmore
and The Pillowman and he can boast having had four plays running
simultaneously in London in 1997.
Grainne McLoughlin
- Directed by Kristie Davis
The Beauty Queen of Leenane runs at the Watford Theatre from February
2-25. For further information contact
www.watfordtheatre.co.uk
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