Marie moves forward into matriarch’s role

Judy Murphy

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Arts Week with Judy Murphy

It’s 16 years since Marie Mullen won a Tony Award on Broadway for her performance of Maureen Folan in Martin McDonagh’s debut play, The Beauty Queen of Leenane.

The play had its first outing in Galway 20 years ago, in a co-production between Druid and London’s Royal Court and it then went on worldwide success.

Two decades on, Druid is revisiting the play. This new production is under the stewardship of its original director, Garry Hynes, and Marie is again in the cast.

But time has moved on.

In 1996, Marie played Maureen, a plain, lonely woman in her early 40s, caring for her manipulative mother Mag, a role that was fantastically inhabited by the late Anna Manahan.

Now, Marie is taking on Mag, while Aisling O’Sullivan plays Maureen, who sees her only chance of romance being destroyed by her controlling mother.

“The more I work with the script, the more brilliant I think Anna was, so precise and such a big power,” says Marie of her predecessor.

But this is a new production, she adds. “And have to concentrate on what works for Aisling and me as mother and daughter – what is the truth for us. Also, on Martin’s words. There are some great things happening now with the pull between us and the extreme madness.”

Having said that, Marie is not complacent. This is the final week of rehearsals before opening night next Tuesday, always a tense period. Martin McDonagh, who is currently editing his latest film, visited the rehearsal room last weekend and the cast are currently working on notes which he and Garry have given them.

In this production, the role of Maureen’s love interest Pato Dooley – played by Brian F O’Byrne in 1996 – is taken on by Marty Rea, while Aaron Monaghan plays his younger brother, Ray. He was originally played by the late Tom Murphy who won a Tony Award for his performance.

It’s a fine cast, agrees Marie, but just because the ingredients are there, doesn’t mean they’ll gel. So, no room for complacency. That’s the attitude that has made Marie one of Ireland’s most admired and popular theatre actresses, with a career that has spanned more than 40 years, since she co-founded Druid with Garry Hynes and the late Mick Lally.

“I’ve been very lucky. I got work regularly with Druid and have done exciting things with Garry over the years, but it’s a very precarious business,” she says of acting.

Marie, who moved to Dublin in the late 1980s, with her husband, fellow actor Seán McGinley, had to think hard about taking on the role of Mag when Garry Hynes suggested reviving Beauty Queen for a 20th anniversary run.

“This play is a gruelling thing to have in your head,” she says. “I get emotionally upset in rehearsal room and it’s about trying to pull yourself out of that world and back into the real world. It goes into your head – but it has to,” she adds.

Marie was swayed by her admiration for the play.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.