Helen Clare

Music Theatre of Connecticut MainStage, Fairfield County's professional award-winning theatre company opens their 36th MainStage Season with Sunset Boulevard.

As I watched Martin McDonagh's The Cripple of Inishmaan, some painful recollections surfaced from my childhood about Ireland and its people. My mother was second generation Irish, her parents Irish immigrants who declared quite emphatically that they were happy in America and never wanted to return to their homeland, even for a visit. My mother relayed this information to me with tears in her eyes as she recalled how her mother, my maternal grandmother, would never care to endure again her harsh existence in turn of the century Ireland. The characters in McDonagh's play, circa 1934, are desperately lonely creatures, forced to take it out on those closest to them for want and need of a better way of life. Now at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. the Druid and Atlantic Theatre Company return to LA on tour in their rightfully acclaimed production of ...Inishmaan.

Martin McDonagh's comedy deserves the standing ovation it achieved.