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Bretta Gerecke has created a gothically grungy set and the characters are as twisted as a mountain road. Hatred hangs in the air like smoke from a peat fire.
But we are talking Irish play here and humour is as much a part of the Irish spirit as the black soil of the isle itself. Playwright Martin McDonagh is often compared to movie director Quentin Tarantino (one of his influences) and, like Tarantino, his dialogue is seemingly banal on the surface but darkly comic with an unsettling layer of menace bubbling just below.
In a dirty and decaying hovel in western Ireland live the slovenly and aged Mag (Carolyn Hetherington) and her 40-year-old spinster daughter, Maureen (Jan Alexandra Smith). The two spit at each other like caged cats, their loathing played out in the small gestures of abuse that have become ingrained in their bleak existence.
Into their lives comes Pato Dooley (David McNally), a lad from the village who has spent many years unhappily working in England. At first Maureen uses Pato as a weapon against her mother, but soon a real passion grows between the two.
Mag strikes out and unearths dark family secrets that are the key to a climax that is as wrenching as it is unexpected.
McDonagh is an Englishman who spent his summers in the west of Ireland and obviously absorbed the speech and social patterns of the inhabitants. His characters are simply unforgettable. They have an inner life of their own and inhabit a world of squalour and torment far distant from the warm memory plays that have been Irish theatre for so many years.
By aiming for the big emotions but keeping them under strict control, and with a precise eye for telling detail, director David Storch has created a believable but brutal world where decency and love have fled.
He has directed his players to give full rein to the thick musicality of the accent so it may take a while before you plug in to what they are saying.
The cast is superb, led by Hetherington as the grasping old lady. Trapped in a failing body and striking out with thoughtless cruelty at everything around her, her face mirrors the crafty malevolence of her every move.
Smith, usually a radiant performer, here effectively transforms herself into a drab and spiteful harpy.
McNally brings the right amount of blarney and charm to the only character that seems to have any socially redeeming qualities.
Ugly and unsettling but funny and passionate, The Beauty Queen of Leenane is an extraordinary evening of theatre. It's at the Rice Stage until Dec. 9. (More: Theatre Reviews).