Der einsame Westen

Lisztstr.1

1030 Wien

 

German by Martin Molitor and Christian Seltmann

The kitchen-diner of an old farmhouse in Leenane, a tiny town on the coast of County Galway, Ireland. Brothers Valene and Coleman, who have lived together here for ages, have just buried their father who was shot, and they are fighting over chips, liquor and statues of saints. The young parish priest, Father Welsh, came with them after the funeral to get drunk and complain about the unteachable village where everyone fights, shoots or kills themselves. The fourth character in the tragicomic quartet is Girleen, almost of age and a seller of Poteen, a high-proof distilled spirit made from barley. When she rings the brothers' door with her goods and sad news from the village, an irrevocable dynamic of horror sets in motion, full of honest concessions, impulsive violence and black humor.

Mateja Koležnik has already staged several plays by Martin McDonagh, the “Irish theater Tarantino”, in her Slovenian homeland. Even before he became a successful filmmaker (“Seeing Bruges and Dying,” “The Banshees of Inisherin”), McDonagh wrote the Leenane Trilogy (1996–1997), three plays in which he lets Irish villagers insult one another in a distinctive language . DER EINSAME WESTEN is the highlight of this remarkable youth work, which is full of timeless themes: family, guilt and punishment, love, the meaning of life and death - and of course the eternal question of whether Taytos or McCoys chips are better.

 

(Source: burgtheater.at)