"…(The Beauty Queen of Leenane) when it's performed properly, as in the arresting production by the Two River Theater Company here, this play is a masterly creation…the production is spellbinding… "

"…(playwright McDonagh)…he manages to keep an air of descending doom around his characters even while folding in some very funny comedy, and he fearlessly goes right up to the boundary of excess without ever quite crossing it."

"… there are terrific bits of comedy, the best of them provided by Daniel Loeser as Ray, Pato's dim-bulb brother."

"…Ms Silliman finds the perfect mix of martyrdom and desperation, and Ms. Sternberg, a bedraggled fright, inspires sympathy and annoyance."

"Maureen Silliman splendidly plays Maureen. From the matter-of-fact way that she says to Mag, "I'm not appreciated" at the top of the play, she immediately gains an audience's sympathy -- because she makes us believe she's telling the truth. Silliman goes on to create a woman who long ago lost out on life, and can see no way out of her doomed dilemma."

"Mag (Jennifer Sternberg)...is a mother who would infuriate even the most devoted daughter."

"...Peter Reardon seems to have an unenviable role as Pato. When both mother and daughter engage in insult after insult, all he's left to do is react in horror. But he has a lovely monologue that begins the second act, and he uses it to show both the character's bravado and fears."

"Also on hand is Daniel Loeser as Ray, Pato's dim-witted brother. By the time he finishes delivering his lines (which he does superbly), audiences may feel that he wears a stocking cap so that his few brain cells won't fall out.

"(The Beauty Queen of Leenane) makes for a good evening of theater, especially with the handsome and thoughtful production by the Two River Theatre Company."

"...actors make the most of McDonagh's comic dialogue and character quirks...the entire cast of four all are wonderful."

"...good acting in a spectacle of the ordinary turning into a hotbed of melodrama with a jaw-dropping climax."