Martin McDonagh, master of contemporary theatre and the grotesque, is known for his raw, ironic and ruthlessly realistic style. Acclaimed for plays such as The Leenane Trilogy and films such as Three Posters to Ebbing, Missouri, The Spirits of the Island and In Bruges, he is considered one of the most brilliant contemporary authors, capable of combining black humour with sharp social criticism. With The Little Queen of Leenane, the Irish playwright constructs a psychological thriller with a noir flavour, in which tension and humour combine in a merciless tale about family and loneliness. A bond between a mother and daughter poisoned by hatred, marked by an incessant conflict where resentment and addiction intertwine in a perverse game of power and frustration.
Two extraordinary actresses, a daring director, an unforgiving author.
The mother seems to do everything she can to sabotage her daughter's happiness, binding her to herself with subtle manipulations and petty stratagems. But is it really only her fault that life has not afforded her great opportunities? Neither of them is a monster, neither is completely innocent. They are simply two struggling souls, clinging fiercely to their despair. There is never a gesture of affection between them, never a caress: their language is made up of sharp jokes, shouted quarrels, cruelty, sometimes brutal, but always tinged with a disarming vulnerability. In this constant tension, every everyday object becomes a threat and the domestic environment is transformed into a powder keg ready to explode.
Mc-Donagh's black irony breaks this atmosphere with a sharp and irreverent humour, capable of extracting bitter laughter. You can laugh, yes, but with clenched teeth, because the disquiet is always present, in a crescendo that reveals an almost tragic pessimism about the family and, perhaps, about humanity as a whole.
Ambra Angiolini is Maureen, a complex and poignant figure: a forty-year-old virgin whose precarious equilibrium conceals a kernel of madness ready to emerge. Her fragility makes her profoundly human, prompting the audience to empathise with her, to hope that she can finally find a way out. But how far would she be willing to go in order not to give up on her dreams? The power games between her and her mother Mag – played by Ivana Monti – are at the centre of a cruel dance in which the roles of victim and executioner are constantly reversed. Between vitriolic jokes and biting insults, the audience is left wondering: who is really winning this war? And who is really the victim? A performance that is an emotional and actorly challenge of great intensity for two extraordinary performers Ambra Angiolini and Ivana Monti. They will be directed by Raphael Tobia Vogel, already the director of Per Strada, Good New Year, Kids! , Marjorie Prime and two recent successes that have been highly acclaimed by audiences and critics alike: Costellazioni and Scene da un matrimonio.