Images: 
Total Rating: 
***
Opened: 
January 24, 2008
Ended: 
February 17, 2008
Country: 
USA
State: 
Florida
City: 
Miami
Company/Producers: 
The Naked Stage (Antonio Amadeo - producing artistic director)
Theater Type: 
Regional
Theater: 
Pelican Theater at Barry University
Theater Address: 
11300 N.E. Second Avenue
Phone: 
866-811-4111
Running Time: 
2 hrs
Genre: 
Comedy-Drama
Author: 
Martin McDonagh
Director: 
Margaret M. Ledford
Review: 

 In Leenane, the village in western Ireland where Martin McDonagh set three funny and fierce plays just more than 10 years ago, relations between relatives and friends often are a matter of close-in combat with savage blows to the body and psyche. The Lonesome West, one of those plays, gets a top-notch production by the young Naked Stage theater company near Miami. At times it renders the close-in audience breathless.

In The Lonesome West (the other plays in the trilogy are The Beauty Queen of Leenane and A Skull in Connemara) we meet bachelor brothers Coleman and Valene when they arrive back at their house after burying their father. His was the latest mysterious death in Leenane, and this one had cast suspicion on Coleman. Valene, armed with a marking pen, sharp tongue and a rubbery swagger, acts very much like he owns the place -- which he does now, as he repeatedly makes clear to his brother ­-- along with everything now in it and all Tayto-brand chips and religious figurines he'll be buying. This is the latest playing out of sibling rivalry gone vicious, in an amusing way.

Margaret M. Ledford directs at a brisk pace, and John Manzelli (as Coleman) and Antonio Amadeo (Valene) are quick and funny in roles that might make people feel guilty for laughing so much.

For pathos there's Katherine Amadeo as Girleen and Adam Simpson as Father Welsh; they're electric as souls trying to find their way where even the girls-under-12 soccer team has an attitude. It just sent an opposing player to the hospital in this outpost near Galway.

"It seems like God has no jurisdiction in this town," laments fond-of-the-drink Father Welsh, the soccer coach and parish priest who's in the throes of his latest crisis of faith. That just gets him more teasing by the brothers and by Girleen, a teenager half his age.

Accents are spot-on throughout. Sets (no, the stage isn't naked) and lighting are calibrated to the small space. And it's a nice touch to have among the snacks for sale to the crowd bags of Tayto chips from the plant in County Armagh.

Parental: 
profanity, violence
Cast: 
John Manzelli (Coleman Connor); Antonio Amadeo (Valene Connor); Adam Simpson (Father Welsh); Katherine Amadeo (Girleen)
Technical: 
Set: Antonio Amadeo; Lighting: John Manzelli; Costumes: The Naked Stage and Margaret M. Ledford; Sound: Katherine Amadeo; Dialect coach: Katherine Amadeo; Fight choreographer: John Manzelli; Stage manager: Belkys Cordero.
Other Critics: 
MIAMI HERALD Christine Dolen ! / SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL Jack Zink ! / PALM BEACH POST Hap Erstein – / MIAMI NEW TIMES Brandon K. Thorp X / [MIAMI] SUN POST Mary Damiano + / MIAMI ART GUIDE Dinorah Perez Rementeria –
Miscellaneous: 
<I>The Lonesome West,</I> a Druid Theatre Company/Royal Court Theatre co-production directed by Garry Hynes, debuted in Galway in June 1997 and played London the following month. It opened on Broadway in April 1999.
Critic: 
Julie Calsi
Date Reviewed: 
February 2008