The Druid production of Martin McDonagh's The Beauty Queen of Leenane may transfer from its off Broadway theatre on to Broadway and repeat the success of Dancing At Lughnasa, following yesterday morning's rave review in the New York Times.
The two-page review, by Ben Brantley, did not contain a single criticism. It opened with the words: "Sometimes you don't even know what you've been craving until the real thing comes along."
Other positive reviews included that of Clive Barnes in the New York Post, and Fintan O'Toole, who is the guest theatre critic with the Daily News. He described the production as "a triumphant introduction to New York" for Martin McDonagh.
The gains of a Broadway run can be enormous. A hit show might gross about $500,000 a week, estimates the Irish artistic director of the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, Joe Dowling. The director would earn about 1 or 2 per cent of that - over $5,000 a week - and the playwright would earn more than $30,000 a week.
Noel Pearson, the impresario who brought Lughnasa to Broadway, speculated yesterday that the New York Times review might indeed be enough to move the show to Broadway. But the costs of staging a production there are high; Lughnasa had opened on Broadway at a cost of about $1 million, whereas an off-Broadway opening like that of Beauty Queen might cost only about $100,000.