fortyfivedownstairs.com

See article in its original context here by Cameron Woodhead for The Age.

★★★★

My Life in the Nude: Maude Davey shines in clever burlesque

I’ve sat through a spate of underwhelming shows lately, and needed something to lift my spirits, to restore my faith in performance. Maude Davey’s My Life in the Nude was just the thing.

It’s part of the new Encore Series – a collaboration between independent companies which remounts sell-out seasons from La Mama at fortyfivedownstairs. That’s a cheering initiative. Quite apart from the fact that too often successful indie shows disappear without a trace, even theatre critics can’t see everything and this is a show I regret missing out on last year.

With good reason, it turns out. Davey’s arrestingly clever burlesque will be familiar to you if you’re one of the roughly 100,000 Australians who’ve seen Finucane & Smith’s The Burlesque Hour over the last decade. But she has been performing in the nude for longer than that, and the show’s a finely tuned selection of her greatest hits.

I was thoroughly entertained and moved by Davey’s playful gender-bending antics and the warm vignettes from her career, by her celebration of the beauty and vulnerability of the body. By the comic sketches and the song she sang (the gothic visuals and silky vocals she brings to Portishead’s Glory Box are one highlight, unleashing the audience’s inner bogan with The Angels’ Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again, another).

Then there’s Davey’s sheer presence, which is the key to burlesque, I suspect. “Presence” is used a lot in the performing arts, but no other mode asserts such a raw and tangible claim. The burlesque performer offers every cell of her body to your regard, and Davey has mastered the delicious complexities of the form.

Funny and poignant, confident and vulnerable, frivolous and serious, Davey’s show achieves the reverse of the voyeurism nudity typically inspires, holding the audience in thrall to the female gaze.

See article in its original context here by Suzanne Sandow for Stage Whispers.

Wicked?  Goddess?

Whatever – Maude Davey is a legend!

This rich, curious, beguiling, camp and fun show is a memorable night of Melbourne Theatre history.  Don’t hesitate to book a ticket because you think you might feel awkward – everyone is probably thinking the same thing.  Davies unites the house by confidently asserting some ground rules, most particularly, she is to be the only one getting her gear off.  And with the disarming intimacy of her nudity, keen sensitivity and performed sincerity, bonds of shared experience are formed amongst the audience.  You can comfortably leave all prudery at home, relax and enjoy being thought-provokingly entertained.

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See article in its original context here by Bethany Simons for Aussie Theatre.

Gear off, Brave face on – Maude Davey on ‘My Life in the Nude’

Maude Davey is a theatre maker and performance artist whose body is as recognisable as her face. This week Davey will once again perform her hit solo show My Life in the Nude as part of ENCORE – a new creative partnership between Melbourne’s La Mama theatre and fortyfivedownstairs.

Aussie Theatre’s Bethany Simons took some time out with Davey and La Mama’s long-standing Artistic Director, Liz Jones, to talk about success, courage and nudity.

A new creative partnership between La Mama and fortyfivedownstairs, ENCORE will give audiences a chance to see some of La Mama’s finest 2013 productions for a return season at fortyfivedownstairs this July. One of these productions is Maude Davey’s burlesque dissection of her un-clothed career – My Life in the Nude. With nearly as many people turned away as were squeezed in during the original season, La Mama theatre is thrilled that this production will be given another life.

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See article in its original context here by K.E Weber for Theatre People.

Barry Mitchell Cruises On The Seafarer

Hoy Polloy presents the Victorian premiere of  Conor McPherson’s Olivier and Tony Award nominated play The Seafarer – A Christmas fable of despair and redemption where a drink is never far away for the five drunks inhabiting this shaky  world on a  Christmas Eve in Dublin.

Barry Mitchell plays  James “Sharky” Harkin, an alcoholic who has recently returned to live with his blind, aging brother, Richard Harkin and tension between the brothers is evident from the start. As Sharky attempts to stay off the bottle during the holidays, he contends with the hard-drinking, irascible Richard and his own haunted conscience.

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See article in its original context here by Ben Nielsen for Limelight Magazine.

Maria Callas brought to life in Master Class

In a role of a lifetime, Australian actress Maria Mercedes will portray the famous soprano in Terrence McNally’s award-winning play.

See article in its original context here by Chris Boyd for The Australian.

Shock of the nude: Maude Davey’s mature body of work still awes audience

Marsh’s art­icle on the “sex war” debate in the premiere edition of World Art magazine in March that year triggered a debate in inner-city Melbourne three months later. There, academics and artists politely slugged it out in front of a tiny audience.

When it was Maude Davey’s turn to speak, the 30-year-old performer moved her chair to a point midway between the panel and the audience and declared: “I’m not a pornographer, I’m an artist.”

After a pregnant pause, she told us she wasn’t wearing any undies and impishly flicked up her flouncy black skirt to prove it.

She then delivered an impassioned defence of the explicit and, simultaneously, demonstrated how she liked to masturbate.

For close to 25 years, Davey has managed to balance sex and discourse, mind and body. She aims to shock the intellect rather than merely shock our sensibilities. Remarkably, her performances have never degenerated into sideshow acts. They’re never lurid or tawdry or fake. On that score, she’s more Karen Finley than Annie Sprinkle.

My Life in the Nude is a retrospective of Davey’s most significant and most notorious routines, including the oft-performed My C … and the rarely revived act that earned her the Strawberry Girl moniker in 1991 (let’s just say that product placement is key in that particular routine).

The one significant omission from the line-up is the 1994 lecture-demonstration.

My Life in the Nude is an excellent introduction to the artist, and a delightful reminder of just how sustained, powerful and smart Davey’s work has been for those who have followed her career.

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See article in its original context here by Karla Dondio for Aussie Theatre.

Twenty-five years is a long time to spend naked on a stage. It’s also a sufficient amount of time to reflect on what it means and, more precisely, how it feels to perform naked in front of a crowd. My Life in the Nude is a wonderful celebration of Maude Davey’s ‘nude works’ and, to some degree, it’s a lamentation – though triumphant – on what it is to age as a woman, especially when your body is your livelihood.

I’ve been privy to Davey’s burlesque acts a number of times in Finucane & Smith’s The Burlesque Hour and, quite frankly, I would have left the show grinning from ear to ear if this was all the show comprised of. Nonetheless, what makes this show so powerful is Davey’s acute introspection on the naked form and our collective ideals around appearance.

Perhaps her introspection derives from the fact that, despite making a career out of it, Davey feels insecure about her naked body on stage, especially now that she’s turned 50. As a woman in her 40s, I certainly understand the scrutiny and grief that accompanies one’s declining physicality – and that’s without people seeing me naked.

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See article in its original context here by  Neoskosmos.

While Hollywood is waiting for Meryl Streep to take on the role of a famous soprano in the new HBO series, celebrated Greek Australian performer Maria Mercedes will be taking on the role of a lifetime as the legendary Greek American opera singer Maria Callas.

With leading roles in the Australian premieres of Nine, Sunset Boulevard and Love Never Dies, as well as films such as Head On and Dreams for Life, Maria Mercedes takes on one of the greatest challenges of her career in a new production of Terrence McNally’s Tony award-winning play Master Class.

“Maria Callas is my dream role,” says Mercedes, “and I couldn’t be more thrilled to honour the life of a woman I admire not only for her incredible artistry and passion, but for the daring, honest way she lived her life.”

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See article in its original context here by Samsara Dunston for Melbourne.Arts.Fashion.

★★★★★

The atmosphere of the audience as they entered the theatre for this show was one of eagerness and excitement.  This season of My Life in the Nude is an encore, by popular demand, of the original La Mamma production in 2013.  The show was a sell out success then, and will undoubtedly be one again at fortyfivedownstairs.

fortyfivedownstairs can often feel like a chasmic space, but for the season of My Life in the Nude, the room has been cordoned off and, as a result, a great sense of intimacy is created.  The lush red velvet curtains and cabaret tables set around the stage make the room warm and inviting and bring to mind cabaret venues of old.

The stage is a simple thrust catwalk but the attention to detail is wonderful, including glitter on the edges of the stairs; an aura of plush decadence has been created.  Maude points out the resemblance of the stage curtains to female genitalia at one point in the performance. Isaac Lummis’s design is breathtaking, yet simple and works to support all aspects of the show.  The costumes are also outstanding – my personal favourite being the gorilla suit with booby tassles.
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Mary Lou (left) and photography artist Marie-Angela Paino (right)

Marie-Angela Paino is based in Melbourne Australia with her camera, creating images that move and inspire. She is the curator, organiser and co-exhibitor in our current exhibition A Life Beyond Waiting; a selection of photographs  created to raise awareness of the low rates of organ donation in Australia, and the possibility of generosity among human beings.

What is the inspiration behind your current body of work?

In our society today thousands of hours are spent waiting. Waiting for a friend, waiting for a meeting to start, a bus/train, a text/phone call.  We are always waiting another and it is now almost a norm.  I noticed this on the streets of Melbourne and started shooting it instinctively.  I soon realized there are many people waiting for something more important and for whom these photographs will make a difference.

How do you create these works, what is your process?

Being a street photographer takes determination, something I’m still learning.  It’s different to other forms of photography or art where you can create something from a blank canvas, adding elements to a page or staging a shoot.   It takes constantly looking and always having something to capture it, then being able to select from many the images you’ve captured knowing how they fit into a series.  [more]

See article in its original context here by Linda Morris for The Age.

After graduating from art school, sometime in his mid-20s, David Frazer tried emulating the revered balladeer Paul Kelly.

Frazer wanted to write the kind of songs that would make people cry, and win public adulation as a rock star idol along the way.

It turns out Frazer was too impatient for songwriting, and he couldn’t find subjects he cared enough about to write the kind of poetry that would bend an audience to his will.

Frazer instead became a karaoke act, and then moved on to acting, but didn’t find much success there either beyond a few bit parts in films and commercials.

”I was really bad at showbiz,” says Frazer. ”My last gig was as a gorilla spruiking customers outside a cafe in Sale, and I thought, ‘I can’t get any lower than this’, and that’s when I retired and thought, ‘maybe art is something I’m best at’.”

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See article in its original context here by Tim Byrne for Arts Review.

Central to George Tabori’s extraordinary play Mein Kampf is the notion that laughter is the only sane response to unspeakable horror. It’s certainly a refutation of the famous line by Theodor Adorno that ‘to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric’. Humour, black as burnt coal, is here seen as humanity’s only weapon against unsurpassed brutality.

Set in Vienna in a hostel for the homeless, the play tells the tale of Shlomo Herzl [Steve Gome], who with the help of his friend Lobkowitz [David Kambouris], is attempting to write his memoir. They have just come up with the title of Mein Kampf when a short, irritable Austrian [Glenn van Oosterom] turns up, determined to apply the next day for a place in the Vienna Academy of Art.

It doesn’t take us long to realise we are at a pivotal moment in history, the rejection from Art school that supposedly set Adolf Hitler on a path of genocidal destruction and hate. What makes the play so disturbing is the unwitting but undeniable facilitation that Shlomo gives Hitler, the sense that Jewish kindness and amelioration lends succour to the future mass-murderer of the Jewish people. The moment when Shlomo washes Hitler’s feet is one of the most chilling in recent memory.

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See article in its original context here by Melynda von Wayward for Melbourne.Arts.Fashion.

The Seafarer by Conor McPherson

See interview in its original context here by Arts Review.

Who is Maude Davey?
I’m an actor and a director. I work in the theatre, that pretty much sums me up. It’s what I love most.

What would you do differently to what you do now?
I think about this quite a lot. I have achieved pretty much everything I set out to achieve. So when I think back and imagine what I might do differently, it is simply this. I would aim higher. You get what you are able to imagine for yourself, or you become what you are able to imagine yourself being. I wish I’d wanted more, imagined more for myself.

Who inspires you and why?
Hmmm. I’m inspired by people around me more than by international celebrities or movie stars. People who have kept going with dignity and courage and purpose, through the bad bits as well as the good. Ponch Hawkes. John Romeril. Jenny Kemp.

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See review in its original context here by Robert Chuter for ArtsHub.

4 ½ out of 5 stars

Expert direction, dynamic performances, dazzling writing and design create a biting, clever and inspiring comedy.

Ever been stuck with a nightmare roommate who harbours delusions of grandeur? Most of us have a few horror stories about those we’ve lived with in the past. Imagine that situation multiplied to the point where the setting is Vienna and the nightmare roommate in question is a young enthusiastic art student (or applicant anyway) named Adolf Hitler… and his closest ‘friend’ is a Jewish hawker! Throw in God (or his nearest equivalent), a Catholic lover and even Mrs. Death and we have the extraordinary black comedy Mein Kampf. In this zesty, hilarious, and disturbing encore season by 15 Minutes from Anywhere this time at fortyfivedownstairs, talented director Beng Oh has crafted a sharp and multi-faceted production that combines farce and satire with a great ‘what if?

Writtenby Hungarian writer George Tabori, the play was a sensation at its premiere in 1987 and achieved the near-impossible task of making the Germans laugh at the Nazis. It is still a riot, taking pot shots at the Führer and his ideology with the accuracy of a sniper. (Tabori’s family were killed at Auschwitz, with his mother the sole survivor).

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See review in its original context here by Michael Brindley for Stage Whispers.

By George (György) Tabori. Presented by La Mama and forty-five downstairs. Production Team: 15 Minutes from Anywhere (Beng Oh & Jane Miller). At fortyfivedownstairs (Melbourne). 2-13 July 2014.

On first meeting the poor would-be art student, Adolf Hitler, in a Jewish flophouse, Bible peddler and would-be writer, Schlomo Herzl, remarks, ‘Strange, you don’t look at all Jewish.’  The line got a laugh at the play’s premiere and has done so in numerous productions and many languages ever since.  Mein Kampf is a very black comedy, a mixture of farce, insight, erudition, slapstick, crude jokes (both sexual and scatological), real wit and devastating ironies.  When Hitler is rejected by the Vienna art school, it is Jewish Schlomo who advises him to go into politics – and helpfully trims his ridiculous moustache to the familiar ‘toothbrush’.

Can we laugh at Adolf Hitler?  How about Hitler’s victims?  George Tabori, who believed that the joke was the most perfect literary form, says ‘yes’. Laughter is necessary – or anyway, better than tears in order to understand and bring perspective to life’s tragedies.  Tabori was, after all, an admirer, translator and director of Bertolt Brecht.

Mein Kampf (also the title of course of Hitler’s autobiography) was first performed at the Vienna Akadamietheater in 1987.  The play gave permission, as it were, finally to laugh at Hitler – without saying that he was anything less than a monster, but one who was also ridiculous.

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See interview in its original context here by Theatre Alive.

La Mama and fortyfivedownstairs have joined forces in an exciting new venture, aptly titled ENCORE, and are working together to bring two of La Mama’s most popular 2013 seasons to fortyfivedownstairs in 2014.

Through the program, these two well-known and highly respected arts venues highlight a commitment to delivering must-see theatre, and extending the lives of some of our most outstanding productions.

We talked with fortyfivedownstairs Artistic Director Mary Lou Jelbart about the reason for the season, the shows involved, and future plans.

Tell us a bit about ENCORE and how it came about?

I’ve always loved La Mama, and in fact the very first show at fortyfivedownstairs in 2002 was a La Mama production; Sailing on a Sea of Tears. It was my original dream that popular shows from La Mama should have another season and extend their audience here, but it has been difficult to plan.

This year I thought “now or never!” and Liz Jones was wonderfully supportive of the idea.

How did you choose the two shows that were to be a part of the inaugural season?

Last year I’d been unable to get a seat for Mein Kampf, and only just managed one for My Life in the Nude as both shows totally sold out, turning away audiences.

Malcolm Robertson, the theatre guru who sees everything in Melbourne, said that Mein Kampf was his top pick for 2013.

I fell in love with Maude Davey’s performance, and everything fell into place.

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See review in its original context here by James Jackson for Aussie Theatre.

Mein Kampf, written by Hungarian playwright George Tabori in 1987, examines a moment in history, namely, the existential calm before the onslaught of the Nazi regime – the calm before the storm.

Set in a flophouse in Vienna, it’s the story of Shlomo Herzel, a Jew attempting to write his magnum opus, called Mein Kampf, and quietly trying to survive. Chaos ensues when a young artist attempting to enrol in Vienna’s renowned fine art academy enters; his name is Hitler.

Mein Kampf deals with compassion. It parallels innate humanism with the obsessive and opportunistic features that have come to characterise the figure of Hitler. The work prefigures the historical events to come and maintains a skilled balance between the comic and the tragic. This is achieved through the audience’s insight. We all know what’s going to happen; nonetheless, we laugh at the childlike features of the young Hitler and cry at the compassion and endless optimism of Shlomo.

Between chaos and order, Mein Kampf shifts at times into allegory, a representation of the inability to ‘represent’ the horrors of these moments in history, or perhaps the inability to come to terms with our historical baggage. The space of fortyfive downstairs gives the piece a site-specific feel and merges perfectly with the simplistic set.

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Troy Larkin featured in the Moonee Valley Leader today! Catch him in Mein Kampf 2-13 July 2014.

We sat down with contemporary photographer Abby Storey to chat about her work and practice. Her exhibition is currently running in our gallery space until next Saturday, the 5th of July.

Contemporary photographer Abby Storey

What is the inspiration behind your current body of work ?

Moving to Melbourne from New Zealand made me really think about where the meat I was eating came from. In NZ I had a good source of genuinely free-range, humanely slaughtered meat, and this was something I initially struggled to find in my new home.  My research into areas such as animal welfare, invasive species, food production and land management made me increasingly aware, and in many ways appreciative of the specific knowledge and skills of someone who hunts animals for food and conservation. I have always struggled with killing anything, even a mangled mouse who has been caught in a trap. My inadvertant cruelty in such instances (thank goodness there’s always been someone else around!), sits uneasily beside the fact that I eat meat. I have a huge admiration for someone who is able to – humanely – slaughter and dress the animal they are going to eat, there’s an honesty to this that many of us lack. This is not to say I am pro-hunting however, more pro competance and accountability.

 
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See article in its original context here by Sonia Harford for The Sydney Morning Herald.

Soul searching: The drink flows in The Seafarer, but the prize for the winning hand is greater than any normal card game when a new face turns up at the table.

A mysterious stranger is the wildcard in many a play or film, usually amping up our sense of unease.

Menacing or benign, the new player at the poker table arrives to upset the status quo, portending any number of cathartic events.

In theatre, Irish writers have long staked a claim on such atmospheric drama. Poetic stories seem to ferment in their peat bogs.

Conor McPherson is one of a modern breed of acclaimed Irish playwrights, along with The Leenane Trilogy writer Martin McDonagh. Mythic and supernatural themes characterise McPherson’s early works such as The Seafarer, soon to be staged by Melbourne’s Hoy Polloy ensemble.

‘‘The Seafarer is the most out-and-out religious play I’ve written,’’ McPherson acknowledges, on the phone from Ireland. ‘‘It sits very comfortably in the Christian myth. But it is is also very much a pagan play, harking back to very primal fundamental forces. The play takes place on Christmas Eve but also the winter solstice, the shortest day in the year – in this part of the world anyway. It’s about darkness and light, inner darkness and being delivered from that and trying to transcend that.’’

The Seafarer positions its late-night visitors around a poker game in a Dublin house. They arrive to join two brothers, one an alcoholic, one blind. Lingering, drinking, the men in this marooned group reveal their natures, the working-class idiom belying grander forces at stake. Cue an expensively dressed stranger.
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See interview in its original context here by Arts Review.

On the Couch with Beng Oh

Who is Beng Oh?
Beng Oh, n. 1. a gay Asian-Australian director who resists labels. 2. a stubborn craftsman and persistent artist. 3. a work in progress.

What would you do differently to what you do now?
Package my personal narrative for ease of consumption. Create a body of work which, for better or worse, is inextricably identified with Beng Oh.

Who inspires you and why?
French director Ariane Mnouchkine and her company, Théâtre du Soleil. They work collectively and collaboratively, often with writer and philosopher Hélène Cixous , and produce epic spectacles for the stage. Their work is rich in detail and draws on many influences, not least their ensemble of actors from over 20 countries. They are passionate, political and not afraid to grapple with ideas and intractable problems. Their work embraces complexity and is unforgettable ex. Le Dérnier Caravansérail (The Last Caravan Stop) which was seen at the 2005 Melbourne Festival.

What would you do to make a difference in the world?
Keep a small carbon footprint and keep making theatre. I subscribe to Ronnie Burkett’s definition of art as your personal contribution to the ever continuing conversation about life.

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See interview in its original context here by Theatre Alive.

LA MAMA AND FORTYFIVEDOWNSTAIRS JOIN FORCES FOR ENCORE

ENCORE is an exciting new creative partnership between two of Melbourne’s thriving independent performing arts venues; La Mama and fortyfivedownstairs.

The inaugural ENCORE program will allow audiences a chance to see two of La Mama’s finest 2013 productions in a return season at fortyfivedownstairs.

Mein Kampf by George Tabori (Directed by Beng Oh), and My Life in the Nude written and performed by Maude Davey will play from July, 2014.

Through ENCORE, La Mama and fortyfivedownstairs are committed to delivering must-see theatre, and extending the lives of outstanding productions.

For over a decade fortyfivedownstairs founder and artistic director Mary Lou Jelbart has hoped that productions could move from La Mama to fortyfivedownstairs in order to allow artists to extend the lives of significant works, and to bring those works to a wider audience.

See article in its original context here by Matthew Grant for The Toorak Times.

★★★★

Wandering up and down the fortyfivedownstairs staircase to an open warehouse space that twists and turns and reinvents itself with each new show is a fun, Melbourne thing to do.

fortyfivedownstairs is currently playing The Three of Us , a Deany-Martini stirred n shaken, kinda show. You can rock along and be assured of a good night out. It’s a bottle of bubbles, a gaggle of giggles and a “yabba-dabba-dadda-dabba said the monkey to the chimp”, hoot of a good time.

The Three of Us showcases the works of three of Melbourne’s up-n-comin’ players: Michael Dalton, Luke Gallagher and Rachael Dunham. Essentially it’s a pint-sized Rat Pack cabaret show.

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See article in its original context here by Jo McMahon for The Toorak Times.

ENCORE is breathing new life into Melbourne’s performing arts

ENCORE is the new creative partnership between two of Melbourne’s most successful independent performing arts venues, La Mama and fortyfivedownstairs.

Creative director of fortyfivedownstairs Mary Lou Jelbart explained that the program intended to give another run to some of La Mama’s most successful shows, this time being George Tabori’s Mein Kampf and Maude Davey’s My Life in the Nude.

“These two shows weren’t just picked because of their popularity, but more importantly because of their superior quality and their originality,” Mary Lou Jelbart said.

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See review in its original context here by Tim Byrne for TimeOut Melbourne.

★★★★★

This back-to-back trilogy, starring Noni Hazlehurst, recaptures Martin McDonagh’s childhood filled with humour, darkness and violence

Martin McDonagh is often mentioned in the same breath as Quentin Tarantino, and indeed the poster for his Connemara trilogy invokes the filmmaker directly. I guess it’s the deliberately uncomfortable mix of violence and humour, the deadpan nihilism, which brings the cult director to mind. Of course, it could just be the body count.

McDonagh has a few films of his own under his belt now, but his career began with The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Set in the county in which his father was born, his first play drew heavily on the cultural and linguistic nuances of Connemara; bleak and insular, full of petty and long-standing grievance, made up of people struggling to live with themselves and each other.

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See review in its original context here by Cameron Woodhead for The Age.

★★★★

The Lonesome West review: Family feud heats up in compelling black comedy

Kin Collective’s production of the The Lonesome West, the final leg of the Leenane trilogy, brings to life a brutally amusing Cain and Abel story set in the same shit-splat Irish town as the first two.

The Connor brothers, Coleman (James O’Connell) and Valene (Mark Diaco), are always at each other’s throats. They can’t help themselves. Even freshly returned from their father’s funeral, with the parish priest (Dean Cartmel) in the room, they’re at it hammer and tongs.

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See review in its original context here by Cameron Woodhead for The Age.

A Skull in Connemara is the second and least well-known play in McDonagh’s Leenane trilogy, and the most ghoulish and macabre of the three. It delves (quite literally) into the graves of the unquiet dead of Leenane, whose estate is rightly to be envied by those still living in the town – riven as it is by small minds and wagging tongues, crushing boredom and endemic malice.

Every year, the town’s gravedigger Mick Dowd (Chris Bunworth) exhumes the remains in a section of the local cemetery. It’s a murderous chore made worse by the presence of the thick-skulled chatterbox Mairtin Hanlon (Tom Barton), and his dour copper brother Thomas (Pete Reid).

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See review in its original context here by Leonard Miller for the Toorak Times.

Martin McDonagh is something of a wunderkind playwright. At only 44, he is remarkably accomplished with successful film adaptations, West End and Broadway productions and Laurence Olivier and Critics’ Circle Theatre awards under his belt. In staging the entirety of his trilogy of plays set in and around the Irish coastal village of Leenane, the Kin Collective has made an ambitious choice which succeeds in doing justice to his well wrought epic.

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See review in its original context here by Jennifer Porter for ArtsHub.

Tackling themes of co-dependency, alienation, escape and faith, the trilogy is superbly executed by the Kin Collective.

See review in its original context here by Jess Sykes for Onya Magazine.

The Leenane Trilogy – The Beauty Queen of Leenane

The first instalment of the KIN Collective’s Leenane Trilogy was so beautifully done that it has created an almost unbearable amount of anticipation for the next two plays.

Even as we entered the theatre, the wonderful Noni Hazlehurst was waiting on stage. She certainly created a far cry from her much-loved Playschool days, looking like she’s been passing the time shooting up with Jemima, after kicking the stuffing out of Big Ted.

She inhabited the role of Mag; the bitter, self-pitying, manipulative mother to Michala Banas’ Maureen so fully it was enthralling to watch. Martin McDonagh’s words and story were as dark and hilarious as always, but it was each of the four actors on stage that created such an intense and beautiful play to watch.

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See review in its original context here by Cameron Woodhead for The Age.

Rating: ★★★★ 1/2

Beauty Queen of Leenane review: Noni Hazlehurst stuns in Irish revival

To stage the trilogy of plays that launched the career of Martin McDonagh (In Bruges, The Pillowman) is an ambitious project, especially for an independent theatre company. If the KIN Collective’s production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane is any guide, you should rush to snap up tickets to all three.

See review in its original context here by Kate Herbert for the Herald Sun.

Rating: ★★★★

Theatre review: The Beauty Queen of Leenane (part one of trilogy), at fortyfivedownstairs

MARTIN McDonagh’s grim comic-tragedy, The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, seethes with the suppressed rage between a controlling mother and her hapless, middle-aged daughter.

In their isolated and dilapidated cottage in Connemara, on the windswept coast of Ireland, Mag (Noni Hazlehurst) and Maureen (Michala Banas) live out their miserable, repetitive daily lives of sniping, cruelty and mutual loathing.

Hazlehurst totally inhabits the manipulative, whining and contrary old harridan, Mag, delivering a superbly nuanced performance that makes us laugh and wince at Mag’s sneering secretiveness and shameless cruelty.

Michala Banas and Noni Hazlehurst in The Beauty Queen of Leenane. Picture: Lachlan Woods Source: Supplied

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See review in its original context here by Melita Pereira for the Australian Stage.

Left – Michala Banas and Noni Hazlehurst. Cover – Linc Hasler, Michala Banas and Noni Hazlehurst. Photos – Lachlan Woods

The Beauty Queen of Leenane is the first play in Martin McDonagh’s “Leenane Trilogy”, a series of plays that confront the sometimes gruesome mediocrity of domestic life in rural Ireland. The Beauty Queen of Leenane portrays the story of Mag and Maureen Folan, and exposes the depraved cruelty of a mother-daughter relationship that has been pushed beyond the extremes of loathing.

The play opens with the sight of disheveled Mag Foley, sitting in her rocking chair with cantankerous anticipation. Her mouth twists in animated complaint as her daughterMaureen enters the house. The younger woman hunches slightly, acceding to the demands of her mother, her vibrancy vanishing under the oppression of her mundane responsibility. With this first caustic scene, the fictionalised world of McDonagh’s Leenane clicks into action.

Presented by Kin Collective and performed at fortyfivedownstairs, The Beauty Queen of Leenane is an edgy and confrontational theatre experience. Built on the solid foundation of McDonagh’s exuberant and razor-sharp dialogue, The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a raw black comedy, always playing in the shadows of violence and grotesque honesty.

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See review in its original context here by Ben Neutze for Crikey.

3 1/2 stars

There’s something delightfully ‘90s about the way Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s 1996 play The Beauty Queen of Leenaneunfolds. The blend of black comedy, horror and heightened drama/melodrama emerging from domestic situations which McDonagh trades on is constantly familiar and feels pretty retro. But it’s the precision with which McDonagh pulls the elements together, the (somewhat predictable) twists and turns, and his undeniable wit that makes The Beauty Queen of Leenane a thrilling and enduring piece of theatre.

As the first play in McDonagh’s The Leenane Trilogy, it brings to life the people of Ireland and the community of the small, but beautiful village in Western Ireland, surrounded by sweeping green hills. It’s also where McDonagh spent his holidays as a child. Mother and daughter, Mag (Noni Hazlehurst) and Maureen Folan (Michala Banas), are living, or rather, surviving, in McDonagh’s Leenane. Maureen, a 40-year-old virgin who’s had to overcome her fair share of hardships is stuck looking after her sick 70-year-old mother. Their relationship is strained, to say the least, with Mag manipulating her daughter and doing all she can to prevent Maureen’s happiness and keep her to herself. We know that there’s beauty outside the front door of the Folan’s claustrophobic cottage, but it’s a beauty that’s trapped the people of Leenane.

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