The Lonely West - Academy Theater Vienna

The kitchen of an old farmhouse in Leenane, a tiny place on the coast of County Galway in Ireland. The brothers Valene and Coleman, who have lived together here for ages, have just buried their shot father, and they are arguing over chips, booze, and holy statues. The young parish priest, Father Welsh, has come with them after the funeral to get drunk and complain about the unteachable village, where everyone is at war with each other, shooting each other, or committing suicide. The fourth figure in this tragicomic quartet is Girleen, almost of age and a seller of Poteen, a high-proof distilled spirit made from barley. When she arrives at the brothers' place with her goods and sad news from the village, an irrevocable dynamic of horror sets in, full of honest confessions, 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 ("In Bruges," "The Banshees of Inisherin"), McDonagh wrote the Leenane Trilogy (1996–1997), three plays in which he lets Irish villagers tear each other apart in a distinctive language. THE LONELY WEST is the climax of this remarkable early work, full of timeless themes: family, guilt and atonement, love, the meaning of life, and death – and of course the eternal question of whether Taytos or McCoys chips are better.

Contributors:
Director | Mateja Koležnik
Set Design | Raimund Orfeo Voigt, Dimitrij Muraschov
Costumes | Ana Savić-Gecan
Music | Michael Gumpinger
Lighting | Norbert Piller
Dramaturgy | Jeroen Versteele
Girleen Kelleher | Lili Winderlich
Father Welsh | Itay Tiran
Valene Connor | Michael Maertens
Coleman Connor | Roland Koch