Microwave porridge, stale biscuits and one very ominous fire poker. These are just some of the common-place yet darkly looming objects which make up the world of Mag and Maureen. Somewhere, high on a hill in the small Irish town of Leenane, forty year old Maureen lives with her acerbic and dependent mother Mag. We are trapped in the world that has trapped them for more than twenty years together. Harsh and unrelenting, mother and daughter battle each other with adapted thick skins which threaten to shut them off from the outside world for good. Wildfire Theatre Company’s inaugural offering brings Martin McDonagh’s Irish modern favourite The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, to the Seymour Downstairs with very black laughs and plenty of Irish gravity.

McDonagh, one of the most successful Irish playwrights in recent years, knows his craft. The Beauty Queen Of Leenane (which he allegedly wrote in only eight days) is a tight, complex, beautifully woven play, traversing the rocky path between the bonds of family and the way we can hurt those closest to us. It’s palpable in its anger and shocking in its action, although throughout all we can laugh in the face of the terrible – an undeniably Irish trait. Maureen, played with dignity and understated cunning by Sandra Stockley, is nearly middle aged and still living with the woman who has given her life then prevented her from living it. Her sisters have married and are long gone. With a history of mental illness, Maureen is the one who grudgingly looks after her reliant (yet in no way grateful) mother. Mag her mother, the pillar of stubbornness played with excruciating brilliance by Maggie Blinco, is the expert in mind games. She can pull the sympathy strings when necessary, yet she can push Maureen to the brink at every other waking moment. McDonagh’s play bubbles under the surface, just waiting for the already exposed cracks to crumble their world. What unfolds is a moving and comic exploration of two very lonely hearts driven to disastrous deeds, and the reality of not having the luxury of making choices in life.

Maeliosa Stafford directs, backed by a career with such revered Irish companies as Druid Theatre Company and The Abbey Theatre, and with a personal passion for the work and the people it portrays. His hand is subtle and guides the performances with ease, not pushing for melodrama or rash outbursts. This is in the most part successful, however the play during the first act needs much more energy and pace. Maggie Blinco and Sandra Stockley are perfectly partnered and lend raw reality to their roles, however many of their exchanges (especially during the first act) need the frenetic energy and pace of a mother and daughter at wits end after twenty years of argument. As such the play loses the spark that appears in the text, yet gathers momentum with the appearance of Pato and Ray Dooley, brothers in the same town. Michael Gupta brings a youthful vigour to the young Ray, impatient with life in Leenane and itching to break free. It is his impatience that inevitably places Maureen’s future in Mag’s hands, a truly crushing and well-realised dramatic moment. But it is Patrick Connolly that impresses as the loveable Pato, who is the one that sees Maureen as the Beauty Queen in the title. His letters to her from London, performed as monologues simply sitting in a chair, are heartbreakingly tender. As Pato’s words dream big dreams for Maureen, we know that the battleground she and her mother have laid is too bloodstained for redemption. Deservedly, Connolly received unanimous applause for his performance on opening night, a point of perfect casting by Stafford.

This Beauty Queen Of Leenane is a great night of theatre, hard working and genuine, although it suffers from some small teething issues. Stafford’s production loses pace when it needs to attack most, and clunky scene changes and second-rate sound effects do not draw us into the world of these two extraordinary women like we should be. Barry French’s set design is stale and suffocating which is a very good thing, and all performances are head and heart-strong. The power of the piece lies in its ability to lull us along then surprise us completely in a shocking and unexpected revelation. Our final image of Stockley is striking and heartrending. A modern classic that deserves to be seen.