Begorrah! Beauty Queen of Leenane marks the beginning of a new era at Theatre Memphis. by CHRIS DAVIS If The Beauty Queen of Leenane kin’t set loose yer inner-Mick, then the chances be good ones thars not a wee bit a-the-blarney in ye now, aye. Martin McDonagh’s justly acclaimed play quite literally pisses down the sacred and well-worn kitchen sink of “family drama,” exploding all of that tired genre’s bleak banalities. It’s a ruthlessly funny portrait of madness, unencumbered by either explanation or apology. Under the seamless direction of Anastasia Herin, Theatre Memphis’ production is nearly flawless. Deformed and toad-like in her rocking chair, calling for her Complan or her porridge, the shrewish septuagenarian Mag Folan barks commands like a gutter-born monarch. Jo Lynn Palmer, in a role worthy of her enviable talent, makes Mag a selfish child — lazy and deceitful. It’s hard to say whether or not her condition is the result of age, willfulness, or outright insanity, and wisely, the wonderful Palmer keeps her audience guessing. It’s a gutsy performance that becomes, on the rare occasion, almost too painful to watch. The old Irish toast, “May you be half an hour in heaven before the devil knows you’re dead” has made so many appearances on T-shirts and kitchen plaques that it’s hard to imagine it ever existing outside the context of a Stuckey’s franchise. The oft-repeated but seldom considered bit of oral tradition takes on decidedly sexual overtones when Mag’s cruel-tongued daughter Maureen, a put-upon virgin of 40, sneaks Pato Dooley into her room for an ill-fated tryst. As the understandably addled Maureen, Laurie Cook McIntosh turns in the performance of a lifetime. Whether she is straddling an embarrassed Dooley to torture her mother or brandishing an evil-looking fire-poker, Maureen is absolutely alive. Robert McIntosh (Laurie’s real-life husband) is solid as Pato Dooley, though he could certainly take a wee bit more pride in Pato’s God-given gift of gab. McIntosh is not a flashy performer, and if in the end his Pato seems more like an apparition than a fully realized character, it is to the actor’s good credit. Like Tennessee Williams’ Gentleman Caller, Pato Dooley represents that long-awaited but seldom expected “something that we live for.” Michael Gravois (Ray Dooley) is, it seems, specializing in the portrayal of blithering idiots. From Another Part of the Forest to Arcadia, he has widened his eyes, furrowed up his brow, and played it dumb. All too often, though, his slack-jawed cartoons are just that — cartoons. Here though, Gravois settles down and gives the dim-witted Dooley a real workout. In spite of its numerous critical accolades, McDonagh’s play is far from original. Watching Beauty Queen is not unlike watching one of Sam Shepard’s monolithic family tragedies performed with an occasionally faltering Irish accent. “This house has the smell of pee,” says one of its characters, echoing Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class. Its white-knuckled suspense and gothic tone ape Buried Child, and the mutually cruel relationship Beauty Queen maps between a childish, failing mother and her yearning spinster daughter is copped in its entirety from Samuel Beckett’s Footfalls. What it lacks in originality, however, Beauty Queen more than makes up for in accessibility and sheer impact. That Theatre Memphis scheduled this phenomenal but commercially risky show on its main stage is a miracle. My only regret is that they didn’t schedule it closer to St. Paddy’s Day. Through February 6th at Theatre Memphis. Living Single The Memphis Black Repertory Company’s current offering The Man in Room 306 claims to be “a human portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.” It isn’t. The one-man show is a predictable bit of hagiography that reads like an MFA candidate’s play-writing final. The play begins with the fourth wall firmly in place, but not to worry — before long Dr. King is breaking on through, cracking wise with the audience Ferris Bueller-style, impersonating his father, playing baseball with himself, and even spanking his own bottom. It is many things, but “human” is not one of them. If The Man in Room 306 were touring an aggressive agenda of high schools, community centers, and college campuses, I would have no complaints. If it were a set piece showing every hour and a half at the National Civil Rights Museum, I would have no complaints. It is far more entertaining and certainly more moving than your average history lesson, but ultimately it remains just that — an entertaining lecture on the nature of a great man. Through January 23rd at TheatreWorks. You can e-mail Chris Davis at letters@memphisflyer.com.