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The play is a blend of black comedy, melodrama, horror and bleak tragedy. The story is set in the Irish village of Leenane, Connemara in the early 1990s. It takes place entirely in a shabby, poorly-lit kitchen, resulting in a claustrophobic sense of entrapment.
The play centers on the life of Maureen Folan, a 40-year-old spinster who takes care of her selfish and manipulative 70-year-old mother Mag. Maureen's sisters have escaped into marriage and family life, but Maureen, with a history of mental illness, is trapped in a seriously dysfunctional relationship with her mother.
The Folan cottage is visited by ...Read More
The play is a blend of black comedy, melodrama, horror and bleak tragedy. The story is set in the Irish village of Leenane, Connemara in the early 1990s. It takes place entirely in a shabby, poorly-lit kitchen, resulting in a claustrophobic sense of entrapment.
The play centers on the life of Maureen Folan, a 40-year-old spinster who takes care of her selfish and manipulative 70-year-old mother Mag. Maureen's sisters have escaped into marriage and family life, but Maureen, with a history of mental illness, is trapped in a seriously dysfunctional relationship with her mother.
The Folan cottage is visited by Pato Dooley and his younger brother Ray. Pato is a middle-aged construction worker fed up with having to live and work in England, disappointed by the limitations and loneliness of his life. The day-to-day sameness is tedious also for Ray, a non-threatening "bad boy".
The glimmer of a last-chance romance between Maureen and Pato sparks up in the first act, and continues in the second one with a notable monologue of Pato. The plot, full of deceptions, secrets and betrayals interspersed with turnabouts, keeps surprising the audience. Hopes are raised only to be dashed
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