Amy AsmanHave you ever hated someone so much that you wanted to pour boiling-hot oil all over her?
The main characters in Cal Poly’s spring production “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” which opens today, sure have.
The play, written by famous Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, focuses on the spiteful and lonely lives of an old Irish woman named Mag Folan and her middle-aged daughter, Maureen.
“Mag is a bitter, crusty, manipulative, old codger,” said theatre arts senior Shawna Hood, who plays Mag in the production.
Hood said that she had an especially personal connection with the character because she is a mother.
“Mag is vindictive and manipulative, and that’s totally not me,” Hood said. “I had to get rid of any of my attitudes toward mothering because that’s not what the character is about.”
The cast of “Beauty Queen” is made up of three Cal Poly students and a Cuesta College student. Main character Maureen, played by biochemistry freshman Victoria Doroski, hopes to create a life away from the grasp of her vindictive mother by running away with the village playboy, Pato, played by theatre arts junior Duncan Calladine.
The last character is Pato’s younger brother Ray – an edgy, drug-addicted teenager – played by Cuesta College student Chase Mullins.
When asked if he found speaking in an Irish accent difficult, Mullins said, “I never played sports when I was young; I did voices instead. So it was pretty cool coming into the process and being told that I was already pretty close on (to the accent).”
“Far and Away was in the DVD player for a couple weeks,” he said.
Students can also be found behind the scenes of this production; more than 30 students are involved in building, designing and producing the play.
Sarah Butler, a theatre arts sophomore and assistant stage manager, said that she found working with her fellow peers highly rewarding.
“Sometimes it’s hard to maintain an authoritative voice because they’re your friends,” Butler said. “But I think they’ve all been very respectful and understanding.”
“It’s definitely a balancing act,” said Breanna Martin, a theatre arts junior and “Beauty Queen” stage manager.
When asked why she thought students should come see the play, Martin said, “The only word I can use to describe (the play) is gnarly . (it) has a lot of humor in it and, at the same time, some really gnarly, gruesome parts,” she said. “There’s some sex, some drugs – it has everything in it.”
The Cal Poly Theatre and Dance Department’s production of McDonagh’s “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” is showing in the Alex and Faye Spanos Theatre today through Saturday, with a curtain time of 8 p.m., and a Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at the theatre’s box office for $10. For more information about tickets and performance times, call the theatre box office at 756-2787.