Ivan Cankar Institute for Culture, Sport and tourism Vrhnika
Cankarjev dom Vrhnika
Theatre subscription 2026/27 and beyond
Monday, 12. October, at 19: 30
KRANJ THEATRE
Martin McDonagh
BEAUTY QUEEN LEENANAN
Drama
Directed By: Luka Marcen
Play:
Mag Folan: Vesna Javnikar
Maureen Flan: Vesna Slapar
Pato Doole / Borut Veselko
Ra / Doole / Miha Rodman
Voice of radio host: Dominik Vodopivec
"Leenane is a small rural town in the far west of Ireland. A place where time hangs mercilessly in immobility, where everyone knows each other and is trapped in routine, boredom, memories, desires and dreams. A place where the radio signal catches only occasionally, and television broadcasts only cautious and boring telenovelas. A place where it rains all the time outside and boils inside. Leenane forces its inhabitants to stagnation, passivity, abandonment of desires and covert cruelty. In the middle of Leenan, however, in the stuffy kitchen of an empty home, there is a quiet but merciless war between Mag and Maureen Folan – mother and daughter; a sickly hypochondriac with countless demands and an unrealized single woman without love experiences, but with big dreams. They are doomed to grotesque coexistence, cohabitation and interdependence. Their relationship has long since crossed the line of love and moves between caring and being trapped. Mag and Maureen hate each other from the bottom of their hearts, but they also desperately need each other. Since none of them can live their own lives, they are absorbed in each other. Love degenerates into control, care into manipulation, closeness into possessiveness. But it is precisely in these distorted proportions that an extremely harsh and merciless black comedy of everyday life emerges, which is too realistic to laugh at completely relaxed, but at the same time we cannot condemn it without hesitation. Their daily quarrels, which quietly even make them happy, are suddenly interrupted by the arrival of an old friend, Pat Doole / who managed to get out of the monotonous Leenan. For him, Maureen is still a possibility of escape and exit to a different reality and a more fulfilled world. Unable to accept this, the mage, by plotting, inciting and perverting the truth, initiates a series of new and New incantations that gradually reveal the secrets of the past and fatally affect the future.
Martin McDonagh's Leenan beauty queen is a brutally honest and at the same time mercilessly witty portrait of life in a small town and its damaged, unfulfilled individuals in one way or another, living lives that never really started – so they never stop smoldering either. McDonagh's masterful dialogues are filled with an unbroken tension between the funny and the eerie. Moments of humor are cutting, unexpected – and therefore dangerous. Laughter cuts like a blade of truth. Every comic statement carries in itself the shadow of the unspoken, and every moment of silence smells like an explosion. The relentless, cinematic way of framing perspectives and truths, which constantly jumps from one protagonist to another and exposes everyone in their desires and fears, allows a precise vivisection of lives that are pathological, but at the same time very similar to those we all know up close. Beauty queen Leenana is a game about small defeats that become a defeat for life over the years. About how strongly a person can cling to another – not for love, but for fear of himself. And about how infinitely funny and at the same time tragic it is when all this is called "family"," notes director Luka Marcen.
The performance lasts two hours and 15 minutes, with one break.
Welcome!
Zavod Ivana Cankarja za kulturo, šport in turizem Vrhnika
Cankarjev dom Vrhnika
Gledališki abonma 2026/27 in za IZVEN
PONEDELJEK, 12. oktober, ob 19.30
PREŠERNOVO GLEDALIŠČE KRANJ
Martin McDonagh
LEPOTNA KRALJICA LEENANAN
Drama
Režija: Luka Marcen
Igrajo:
Mag Folan: Vesna Javnikar
Maureen Flan: Vesna Slapar
Pato Dooley: Borut Veselko
Ray Dooley: Miha Rodman
Glas radijskega voditelja: Dominik Vodopivec
»Leenane je majhno podeželsko mesto na skrajnem zahodu Irske. Kraj, kjer čas neusmiljeno visi v negibnosti, kjer se vsi poznajo med seboj in so ujeti v rutino, dolgočasje, spomine, želje in sanje. Kraj, kjer radijski signal lovi le občasno, televizija pa predvaja le previdljive in dolgočasne telenovele. Kraj, kjer zunaj ves čas dežuje, znotraj pa vre. Leenane svoje prebivalce sili v stagnacijo, pasivnost, opuščanje želja in prikrito okrutnost. Sredi Leenana pa v zatohli kuhinji izpraznjenega doma poteka tiha, a neusmiljena vojna med Mag in Maureen Folan – materjo in hčerjo; bolehno hipohondrinjo z neštetimi zahtevami in nerealizirano samsko žensko brez ljubezenskih izkušenj, a z velikimi sanjami. Obsojeni sta na groteskno sobivanje, skupno životarjenje in medsebojno odvisnost. Njun odnos je že zdavnaj prestopil mejo ljubezni in se giblje med skrbjo in ujetostjo. Mag in Maureen se iz dna srca sovražita, a se tudi obupno potrebujeta. Ker nobena ne zmore živeti lastnega življenja, se zajedata druga v drugo. Ljubezen se izrodi v nadzor, skrb v manipulacijo, bližina v posesivnost. A ravno v teh izkrivljenih razmerjih vznikne izjemno ostra in neusmiljena črna komedija vsakdanjosti, ki je preveč realna, da bi se ji povsem sproščeno smejali, hkrati pa je ne moremo brez zadržkov obsojati. Njune vsakdanje prepire, ki ju po tihem celo osrečujejo, nenadoma prekine prihod starega prijatelja, Pata Dooleyja, ki mu je uspelo izstopiti iz monotonega Leenana. Zanj je Maureen še vedno možnost pobega in izhoda v drugačno realnost in bolj izpolnjeni svet. Mag tega ne more sprejeti, zato s spletkarjenjem, podtikanjem in sprevračanjem resnice sproži niz novih in novih podtikanj, ki postopoma razkrivajo skrivnosti preteklosti in usodno vplivajo na prihodnost.
Lepotna kraljica Leenana Martina McDonagha je brutalno iskren in hkrati neusmiljeno duhovit portret življenja v majhnem kraju in njegovih tako ali drugače poškodovanih, neizpolnjenih posameznikov, ki živijo življenja, ki se nikoli niso zares začela – zato tudi nikoli ne nehajo tleti. McDonaghovi mojstrski dialogi so polni neprekinjene napetosti med smešnim in srhljivim. Trenutki humorja so rezki, nepričakovani – in prav zato nevarni. Smeh zareže kot rezilo resnice. Vsaka komična izjava v sebi nosi senco neizrečenega, vsak trenutek tišine pa diši po eksploziji. Neusmiljen, filmski način kadriranja perspektiv in resnic, ki ves čas skače od enega do drugega protagonista in vse povrsti razgalja v njihovih željah in strahovih, omogoča natančno vivisekcijo življenj, ki so sicer patološka, a hkrati zelo podobna tistim, ki jih vsi poznamo od blizu. Lepotna kraljica Leenana je igra o malih porazih, ki z leti postanejo življenjski poraz. O tem, kako močno se človek lahko oklepa drugega – ne zaradi ljubezni, temveč zaradi strahu pred samim seboj. In o tem, kako neskončno smešno in hkrati tragično je, ko se vsemu temu reče »družina«,« ugotavlja režiser Luka Marcen.
Predstava traja dve uri in 15 minut, z enim odmorom.
Vabljeni!