| The Lonesome West | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Martin McDonagh |
| Series | Connemara trilogy |
| Setting | Ireland |
The Lonesome West is a play by British-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, part of his Connemara trilogy, which includes The Beauty Queen of Leenane and A Skull in Connemara. All three plays depict the murderous occurrences in the western Irish town of Leenane.
The Lonesome West features the constantly arguing brothers Coleman and Valene, whose father has just died in a shotgun 'accident.' Valene is only interested in his religious ornaments and drinking poteen. Coleman is only interested in eating, and attends funerals to collect free sausage rolls and vol au vents.
Valene goes out to help drag the body of Garda Thomas Hanlon (character in "A Skull in Connemara") out of the lake with Father Welsh. Hanlon had just killed himself. Coleman pretends to follow, delaying to tie his shoelace, despite the fact that he was wearing loafers. While alone in the house, he destroys all of Valene's plastic figurines, by placing them in Valene's new stove. Only Father Welsh, the alcoholic parish priest, attempts to fix their relationship, but his advice mostly goes unheard.
It is revealed later in the play that Coleman had shot his father because he insulted Coleman's new haircut. Valene agreed to provide an alibi for Coleman, stating that their father's death was accidental. In exchange, he demanded Coleman's share of the inheritance money. Neither of the brothers show any grief or remorse at their father's death. The two brothers fight over everything and anything. Valene attacks Coleman over eating his crisps, and they fight over whose turn it is to read the magazine, and who left the top off Valene's pen, leading to both constant bickering and physical violence. Father Welsh, depressed because of the hatred between the brothers, and with a low self-esteem, writes a letter begging the brothers to get along, asserting that he will stake his soul on it. Father Welsh then proceeds to drown himself in the lake. This act is significant, as there has already been a lengthy discussion about suicide in the play. The characters believe that damnation follows suicide for the victims, as it is technically a murder of the self, and you don't have the opportunity to repent for it afterwards.
Girleen, a young lady who briefly appears earlier in the story to sell poteen to Valene, and who was deeply attached to Father Welsh, is devastated by his suicide, and delivers the letter to the brothers, before going away for the rest of the play. When Coleman and Valene read his letter, they attempt to reconcile themselves, and a "confessions" scene ensues, in which the brothers take turns to admit the wrongs that they had secretly done to each other in the past, and to forgive each other's "sins." Coleman loses his temper when Valene admits to shoving a pencil down the throat of Coleman's old girlfriend, causing her to then fall in love with the doctor that removed it. Valene says "Try and top that one for yourself." Coleman delivers an even more terrible confession, revealing that he cut the ears off Valene's dog two years previously, presenting the evidence of the severed dog's ears in a brown paper bag. In shock, Valene attempts to murder Coleman with a kitchen knife, but Coleman in turn destroys Valene's stove with multiple shot gun blasts, and smashes his new collection of ceramic religious figurines. After a standoff, they calm down and Coleman apologises sincerely; they concede that "Maybe Father Welsh's soul'll be all right so."
The play premiered in June 1997 at the Druid Theatre Company in Galway, at the Town Hall Theatre in a co-production with the Royal Court Theatre. [1]
The play transferred to the Royal Court Theatre, London on 26 July 1997. [2]
The play premiered on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre on 27 April 1999. The same four actors who had appeared in the Galway and London productions also appeared in the Broadway production: Brían F. O'Byrne played Valene, Maelíosa Stafford played Coleman, David Ganly played Father Welsh, and Dawn Bradfield played Girleen. Garry Hynes directed all three productions. The play closed on 13 June 1999 after 55 performances and 9 previews. [3] [4] [5] [6]
Dancing at Lughnasa is a 1990 play by dramatist Brian Friel set in County Donegal in Ulster in the north of Ireland in August 1936 in the fictional town of Ballybeg. It is a memory play told from the point of view of the adult Michael Evans, the narrator. He recounts the summer in his aunts' cottage when he was seven years old.
Martin Faranan McDonagh is a British-Irish playwright and filmmaker. He is known for his absurdist black humour which often challenges the modern theatre aesthetic. He has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, six BAFTA Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, three Olivier Awards, and nominations for five Tony Awards.
Leenaun, also Leenane, is a village and 1,845 acre townland in County Galway, Ireland, on the southern shore of Killary Harbour and the northern edge of Connemara.
The Pillowman is a 2003 play by British-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. It received its first public reading in an early version at the Finborough Theatre, London, in 1995, also a final and completed version of the play was publicly read in 1998 and then finished and released as a book in some places in 1999. Production started in 2000 for the eventual 2003 performance. It tells the tale of Katurian, a fiction writer living in a police state, who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of bizarre child murders occurring in his town. The play received the 2004 Olivier Award for Best New Play, the 2004-5 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best New Foreign Play, and two Tony Awards for production. It was nominated for the 2004 Evening Standard Award for Best New Play.
Anna Maria Manahan was an Irish stage, film and television actress.
Adam Godley is a British actor. He has been nominated for two Tony Awards and four Laurence Olivier Awards for his performances on the New York and London stages which include, Private Lives in 2001, The Pillowman in 2002, Anything Goes in 2011, and The Lehman Trilogy in 2019. He made his Broadway debut in 2002 in a revival of Noël Coward's Private Lives for which he earned a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Broadway debut. In 2011 he returned to Broadway in the musical Anything Goes for which he earned a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical nomination. In 2021, The Lehman Trilogy made its Broadway transfer to great critical acclaim, and securing Godley another Tony nomination for Best Actor in a Play.
Poitín, anglicized as poteen or potcheen, is a traditional Irish distilled beverage. Former common names for Poitín were "Irish moonshine" and "mountain dew". It was traditionally distilled in a small pot still and the term is a diminutive of the Irish word pota, meaning "pot". The Irish word for a hangover is póit. In accordance with the Irish Poteen/Irish Poitín technical file, it can only be made from cereals, grain, whey, sugar beet, molasses and potatoes.
The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a 1996 dramatic play by Martin McDonagh which was premiered by the Druid Theatre Company in Galway, Ireland. It also enjoyed successful runs at London's West End, Broadway and Off-Broadway.
The Lieutenant of Inishmore is a black comedy by Martin McDonagh, in which the 'mad' leader of an Irish National Liberation Army splinter group discovers that his cat has been killed. It has been produced twice in the West End and on Broadway, where it received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. In 2014, The Lieutenant of Inishmore was ranked in The Daily Telegraph as one of the 15 greatest plays ever written.
Rúaidhrí Conroy is an Irish actor. He is the son of actor Brendan Conroy. One of his first castings was as Tito in the 1992 film Into the West, for which he won a Young Artist Award in the Outstanding Youth Actors in a Family Foreign Film category. In 1998, Conroy received the Theatre World Award for his performance in Martin McDonagh's play, The Cripple of Inishmaan.
Brían Francis O'Byrne is an Irish actor who works and lives in the United States. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for his role in the miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011) and won a BAFTA TV Award for his role in the drama series Little Boy Blue (2017).
Marie Mullen is an Irish actress. She is known for co-founding the Druid Theatre Company, located in Galway, Ireland. She is also known for her performance in the 1998 production of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, for which she received a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.
John Crowley is an Irish film and theatre director. He is best known for the films Brooklyn (2015) and his debut feature, Intermission (2003), for which he won an Irish Film and Television Award for Best Director. He is a brother of the designer Bob Crowley.
Ryan Johnson is an Australian actor.
Tom Jordan Murphy was an Irish theatre and film actor best known for his 1998 Tony Award winning performance in The Beauty Queen of Leenane.
Micheál Ó Conghaile is an Irish-language writer who lives in Indreabhán, County Galway, Ireland. He was born on the island of Inishtravin in Conamara and was raised in an Irish-speaking community.
Valene Kane is a Northern Irish actress. She is perhaps best known for her performances in all three series of BBC Two's BAFTA-nominated The Fall, in which she played Jamie Dornan's first lover, Rose Stagg.
Hangmen is a play by the British-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh. It received its world premiere at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in September 2015, before transferring to the West End's Wyndham's Theatre. The play was directed by Matthew Dunster, designed by Anna Fleischle, and featured David Morrissey and Reece Shearsmith among others. It was universally acclaimed by theatre critics, and was nominated for numerous awards including the Olivier Awards, Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and the Evening Standard Theatre Awards. For its U.S. premiere in 2018 at Off-Broadway's Atlantic Theater Company, Hangmen won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Foreign Play.
Susan (Suzi) Dietz is an American theater producer and director. A five-time Tony nominee, and the winner of a Drama-Logue Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to Los Angeles theater, she was the artistic director of the LA Stage Company, the producing artistic director for the Pasadena Playhouse, and the executive director of the Canon Theater in Beverly Hills. Her Broadway credits include Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane, Fela! by Bill T. Jones and Jim Lewis and Terrence McNally's Mothers and Sons.