[ThisWeek] The Beauty Queen of Leenane and My Summer of Love at the Kenworthy

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

Sirius Idaho Theatre presents
The Beauty Queen of Leenane
by Martin McDonagh

Directed by Forrest Sears

Thursday, Friday & Saturday, September 8, 9 & 10
7:30 pm
Matinee Saturday, September 10
2:00 pm

Performances at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main St. Moscow, Idaho

Please join Sirius Idaho Theatre
at One World Café
for the opening night reception
Thursday, September 8, 6:00 ­ 7:00 pm

Music by Potatohead
Free food and drink hosted by One World Café for opening night ticket
holders

The Beauty Queen of Leenane also shows next week-
Thursday, Friday & Saturday, September 15, 16 & 17
7:30 PM
Matinee Saturday, September 17
2:00 PM

Tickets available at BookPeople of Moscow and at Moscow Farmers¹ Market
(Saturday 8 am ­ Noon)
$15 adults, $10 seniors, $5 students

³McDonagh is a natural storyteller who knows how to express a theme through
action, and he knows how to create a gallery of fascinating rogues. The
energy of his plays is prodigious... McDonagh has managed to celebrate what
remains enduring and alive in human nature even in the most appalling
circumstances.²  -- The New Republic

"The most wickedly, brilliantly abrasive young dramatist on either side of
the Irish Sea..." -- The New York Times

Winner of four Tony awards, The Beauty Queen of Leenane premiered in 1996 in
Galway, Ireland. Set in Leenane, a small town in the mountains of Connemara,
County Galway, The Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of
Maureen Folan, a plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag her
manipulative ageing mother whose interference in Maureen's first and
potentially last loving relationship sets in motion a train of events that
is as extraordinarily funny as it is horrific.

Cast
Maureen Folan ­ Pam Palmer
Mag Folan ­ Valerie McIlroy
Pato Dooley ­ Peter Aylward
Ray Dooley ­ Michael Carpenter

The Beauty Queen of Leenane contains strong themes that may offend some
people.

For more information about the play, group ticket sales or to volunteer with
Sirius Idaho Theatre,
contact John Dickinson at 208-301-4361 or <johnd at moscow.com>
or visit the web site of Sirius Idaho Theatre
http://www.siriusidahotheatre.com/
* * *

Kenworthy Film Society presents
My Summer of Love (R)
Sunday, September 11
4:45 & 7:00 pm
$5/adults
(see Review below)
* * *

Next week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .

Kenworthy Film Society presents
American Values:  American Wilderness (not rated)
A documentary film with Christopher Reeve

Sept 18 at 5:00 & 7:00 PM
Tickets $5/adult, $2/child under 13
* * *

Purchase your KFS (Kenworthy Film Society) pass this weekend.

Purchase a new KFS punch card at the Moscow Farmers¹ Market this Saturday.
Available at the Sirius Idaho Theatre ironing board, where you can also
purchase tickets for the first play of SIT¹s 2005-06 season.

KFS passes also available at BookPeople of Moscow or the Kenworthy
Performing Arts Centre box office.
10 films for $30 or 30 films for $75. Passes accepted for all Sunday night
films.
* * *

Fall 2005 at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

Rock School (R)
A documentary film
Sept. 23 at 7:00 & 9:15 PM
Sept. 24 & 25 at 4:45 & 7:00 PM
Tickets $5/adult, $2/child under 13

m-pact in concert
Sept 30 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $12/adult, $6/student with ID

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Oct 7 - 9
Tickets $5/adult, $2/child under 13

Darol Anger Republic of Strings in concert
October 27 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $16/adult, $12/senior or student

Moscow Community Theatre presents
Noodlehead
November 3 - 5, 10 - 12 at 7:30 PM
November 6 & 12 at 2:00 PM
$11/adult, $9/student or senior

Regular Movie prices:  $5 adult, $2 child under 13
KFS passes accepted year-round for Sunday movies!

Coming in October: Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, Enron: The Smartest Guys
in the Room, Mad Hot Ballroom, Darol Anger in concert
Check web site for dates & times. http://www.kenworthy.org
* * *

This week¹s review-

My Summer of Love

Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Written by Pawlikowski and Michael Wynne.
Based on the novel by Helen Cross
Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.
Rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has
nudity, sex, profanity and some brief violence.


As reviewed by Ruthe Stein writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

Some movies grab you slowly, like a halting lover. Others never grab you at
all. Instantly captivating, "My Summer of Love'' had me at hello.

The greeting is exchanged in an exquisitely composed opening scene hinting
at sexual tensions to come. Mona (Natalie Press), a lonely teenager living
above a pub, is swimming in a pond in the English countryside when she sees
a horse's eyes reflected in the water. Mona looks up at the elegant rider
whose bearing as well as high-tone first name, Tamsin, reeks of old money
and an earl or duchess somewhere in the family tree.

Suspended from her last boarding school, Tamsin (Emily Blunt) is at loose
ends. So, lacking anything better to do, she seduces Mona with her
privileged life, giving the awestruck girl fancy clothes and free run of a
huge estate, the kind tourists pay admission to peek inside. It's all
foreplay to a literal seduction, accomplished as the two slow dance to Edith
Piaf, whom Mona has never heard of.

What distinguishes this British import from "A Summer Place'' and other
Hollywood tales of impossible first love isn't the lesbianism, which
director Pawel Pawlikowski wisely plays down. Caught up in the languorous
mood he sets and the power moves steaming under the surface, you almost
forget the lovers share a gender.

Based on a novel of the same title, "My Summer of Love'' is about so much
more than teen passion. It deals with class distinctions and with a sense of
entitlement that comes from being to the manner born. And it's about
self-discovery as Mona, in an attempt to even the playing field, realizes
her own strengths. 

Press and Blunt have never been in a movie before let alone starred in one,
but you'd never know it from the way they command the big screen. The
actresses have chemistry, which makes the romance plausible, and they
complement each other without competing for attention.

With her dark hair and piercing eyes, Blunt looks like Ali MacGraw and has
the haughtiness she brought to "Goodbye, Columbus.'' But Blunt's performance
is subtler. Always the manipulator, her Tamsin puts on airs for effect. She
drops them when she begins to confide in Mona so her new best friend will be
grateful for the intimacy.

Press is a live wire as Mona, natural redhead and hot to trot. Who wouldn't
want to seduce her? Slowly, Press reveals the hurt Mona is covering up. Her
mother recently died of cancer, and she never knew her father. Her brother
(up-and-comer Paddy Considine, who also can be seen in "Cinderella Man'') is
an ex-con who's discovered religion and turned the family pub into a center
for born-again Christians. Just when you wonder where this subplot is
heading, the film makes a surprise detour, and it becomes apparent.

Pawlikowski, justly named one of 10 directors to watch by Variety, packs so
much into "My Summer of Love,'' you feel you've spent a season with these
intriguing characters instead of a mere 84 minutes.


As reviewed by Roger Ebert writing for the Chicago Sun-Times

Her brother has gone bonkers. He's pouring all the booze down the drain and
announcing he's turning the pub into a worship center for Jesus people. Mona
and Phil inherited the pub from their parents, and live upstairs; Phil
(Paddy Considine) has come to Jesus belatedly, after a spell in prison. Mona
(Natalie Press) gets on her moped, which has no engine but nevertheless
functions as a symbol of escape, and wheels it into the country outside
their small Yorkshire town. That's the day she meets Tamsin.

The title of "My Summer of Love" gives away two games at once: That she will
fall in love, and that autumn will come. Mona is a tousled blond, 16 years
old, dressed in whatever came to hand when she got up in the morning, bored
by her town, her brother and her life. Her boyfriend has just broken up with
her in a particularly brutal way. Tamsin (Emily Blunt) is a rich girl, about
the same age, sleek and brunette, on horseback the first time Mona sees her.
She's spending the summer at her family's country house. "You're' invited,"
she tells Mona. "I'm always here."

That their summer leads to love is not quite the same thing as that it leads
to a lesbian relationship. It's more like a teenage crush, composed in equal
parts of hormones and boredom. But Tamsin and Mona promise to love one
another forever, and as they swim in forest pools and ride around the
countryside they form their own secret society.

I'm not sure if the movie has a point. I'm not sure it needs one. I learn
from Variety that the screenplay is inspired by a novel by Helen Cross that
also involves a miner's strike and some murders. All of that is missing
here, and what's left is a lazy summer of sweaty uncertain romance; this
isn't a coming-of-age movie so much as a movie about being of an age. At the
end, when Tamsin tries to explain herself to Mona, we understand how
completely different these two teenage girls are; how one deals in irony and
deception, and with the other what you see is what you get, whether you want
it or not. 

Film reviews researched and edited by Peter A. Haggart
* * *

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit http://www.kenworthy.org
* * *

Sign up for this weekly email on events and movies at the Kenworthy by
logging onto our website
http://www.kenworthy.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org
To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/thisweek/attachments/20050907/23f1e460/attachment.htm