>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

THEATER SEASON OPENS: C.W. Dunbar and Rikki Jo Hickey practice under the watchful eye of director Chuck Peters. (EOU Theatre photo).

LA GRANDE - The season opener for Eastern Oregon University's theatre department promises to conjure up anything but fluff.

"The Beauty Queen of Leenane" opens Oct. 19 at 8 p.m. in Schwarz Theatre and runs through Oct. 21. Tickets are $4 for all admissions, and parental discretion is strongly advised.

The pitch-black comedy has a script that deals with an even darker subject. Written by English playwright Martin McDonagh, it is the story of a mother and daughter whose relationship has become the stuff of nightmares. Think of the movie "Kill Bill."

"The playwright is heavily influenced by Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, but the play deals with concepts that people can connect with," said director Chuck Peters, a 2006 EOU grad.

"A mother-and-daughter relationship is taken to the extreme and it paints a picture of how things could be if allowed to go that far in a real relationship. It is almost a warning, where people are trapped in hell," he said.

Characters Mag Folan and her daughter Maureen are engaged in a battle of wills. The audience is invited into their living room for an emotional rollercoaster ride full of surprises, deception, humor and betrayal as the story unfolds in late 1980s Ireland.

The cast of four has been studying Irish dialect tapes for almost three months in order to deliver a very realistic portrayal of their characters.

"They've all done a good job of learning the accent while at the same time making sure the words are understood," Peters said.

Watching movies like "Waking Ned Divine" helped the actors with their pronunciation. But for some, the content of the play itself was more difficult to overcome than mastering an Irish accent.

EOU senior Rikki Jo Hickey plays the daughter, Maureen, and is a seasoned stage performer. She describes her character as someone who is afraid to feel and suffers from mental instability.

"Out of all the shows I've been in this one has been the hardest," she said. "Chuck pulled all these emotions out of me and at one point I broke down in tears."

Hickey said she also feels this is one of the better shows she's performed in because of the camaraderie that has developed between the cast members.

Peters feel that that sense of camaraderie was enhanced by EOU theatre alums Travis Gray and Emily Nash-Gray, who helped with the acting, coaching and analyzing of the script.

As they studied the script, some of the other actors began to see familiarities within their own families and became more emotionally invested in the performance.

EOU junior Jordan Wallis is of Irish descent. His character, Raymond Dooley, delivers much of the comic relief in the story line.

Pato, played by 2006 EOU grad C.W. Dunbar, is Maureen's on-again, off-again lover.

Together, Pato and Raymond serve in a way as fallen guardian angels trying to keep Maureen and Mag from hurting each other.

"In real life, people wouldn't be laughing at these situations," said Erin Kinzer, an EOU junior cast in the role of Mag.

"This is not a popcorn show," Wallis said.

As a director, Peters said he was first attracted to "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" because of the story itself, not the graphic nature of the play. He found some difficulty interpreting the script and said that the delivery could have easily turned into a melodrama rather than the intended dark comedy that it is.

"It's been painful and it has tested my limits as a director," he said. "Hopefully the work will translate into a piece that people will walk away from thinking, ‘I'm so glad my relationship with my parents isn't like that.'"