The Steward of Christendom

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Irish thespian McCann astounds with a visceral, unshakable performance as a former superintendent of Dublin's metropolitan police who is now the resident of an austere cell in a mental institution. Barry's magnificent portrait is a dramatic recollection of 70 years of torture and losses in one man's life. Slouched in stained long underwear, McCann unfurls his tale in monologues, flashbacks and encounters with visitors, forging an arresting balance between moving detail and creative abstraction. Thankfully, the play does not ask that McCann go through the many ages of his character; he instead triumphs in shading his performance to relay a sense of past and present. Despite the tragic tinges of ruefulness and despair, McCann's tour de force travels beyond his dingy cell to a place of greater clarity.