A Skull in Connemara

Description

Generic Theater presents Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy A Skull in Connemara at the Players’ Ring. Typically for McDonagh, the play involves misfits and unnerving events – some potentially gory - with irreverent humor and a bit of heart. Set in modern rural Ireland, A Skull in Connemara is part of a trilogy based in the town of Leenane. In Skull, it’s time for gravedigger Mick Dowd to make room for new occupants in the church’s graveyard. Local ruffian Mairtin Hanlon, his policeman brother Tom, and their grandmother Maryjohnny each have their view of Mick’s fitness for the job. How Mick finishes his work, and whose bones he must move this year, provide the action. In consummate McDonagh fashion, all is resolved beautifully, terribly, and hilariously, just past the brink of suspense. A Skull in Connemara premiered in 1998, when the 24-year-old playwright was known as the first since Shakespeare to have four productions running on the London stage at once. Two decades and multiple accomplishments later, McDonagh’s movie 3 Billboards Outside Ebbing, MTwon three Golden Globe Awards and was nominated for several others. In 2001 Generic Theater produced the entire Leenane trilogy including Skull as a staged reading and The Lonesome Westin a limited run. Their full production of Beauty Queen of Leenane at Players' Ring won Best Production and Best Actress at the Spotlight awards.