Marin offers a real beauty of a Queen
May 29
Watching Joy Carlin work her magic Mag Folan in Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane is the epitome of theatrical delight. Here you have one of the great Bay Area actors offering a sly, darkly humorous, even compassionate portrayal of a woman who could easily be described as a nightmare. Carlin, like the character she's playing, appears to be a lovely older woman. But perhaps unlike Carlin, Mag is something of a sociopath. And that's a trait she's passed along to the youngest of her three daughters, Maureen, played with sinewy gusto by Beth Wilmurt.
That mother-daughter relationship is the crux of Beauty Queen, and the source of its humor, its drama and its horror. Director Mark Jackson's production for Marin Theatre Company etches that relationship with realism and a savory dash of melodrama.
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