The Beauty Queen of Leenane
The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a 1996 drama by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh premiered by the Druid Theatre Company in Galway Ireland. It also enjoyed successful runs at London's West End, and Broadway, and off-Broadway theatres in New York.

The play centers on the life of Maureen Folan, a 40-year-old spinster who takes care of her 70 year-old, selfish and manipulative mother Mag. Sisters of Maureen 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.

In the course of the play, 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 sameness of its day-to-day is tedious also for his brother, a non-threatening "bad boy" Ray.

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 reader. Hopes are raised only to be dashed.