Enda Walsh’s ‘Misterman’ Returns With a Mesmerizing Revival

One hardly needs to look to fiction for examples of the perils of religious zealotry, but more than 25 years ago, the Irish playwright Enda Walsh conceived a particularly harrowing account.“Misterman,” a solo piece tracking Thomas Magill, a self-appointed messenger of God, as he wreaks utter havoc on Inishfree, a small town off the coast of County Donegal, had its New York premiere at Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2011, a few months after being introduced at the Galway Arts Festival. That production was directed by Mr. Walsh and starred Cillian Murphy, who later starred in “Oppenheimer.” Mr. Murphy had worked with the author previously.For the new staging of “Misterman” now being presented off-Broadway at Theater Row, as part of this year’s Origin Irish Theatre Festival honoring Mr. Walsh, Labhaoise Magee, artistic director of Origin Theatre Company, has cast a performer whose name likely won’t be as familiar, but hopefully will be soon: Daniel Marconi, whose credits include replacement gigs in Broadway productions of “Sweeney Todd” and, as a child actor back in 2007, “Mary Poppins.”Bright-eyed and delicately handsome, Mr. Marconi resembles a young Mr. Murphy slightly and shares his ability to project both sensitivity and danger, which suits his character here perfectly. We meet Thomas in what looks like a ramshackle factory space, designed by Silin Chen to suggest a crazed hoarder’s refuge, with electrical cables and balloons contributing to a sense of chaos and foreboding.A recording of Doris Day singing “Everybody Loves a Lover” on repeat, begun before the curtain rises, continues for a while, growing louder despite Thomas’s frantic attempts to silence it before it abruptly stops. Elliot Yokum’s sound design will prove fundamental to the production throughout, becoming more abrasive as the demons tormenting Thomas from within and without — he really, really doesn’t like dogs, we’ll learn — then quieter during his calmer and more hopeful moments; one scene even features a breezy lounge instrumental.Any flickers of contentment or good cheer suggested by the music are ultimately ironic, however, as is the reassuring voice of Thomas’s beloved Mammy, whom he still lives with (not a big surprise), one of a few we’ll hear on old-fashioned tape recorders, with Mabel Byrne and Úna Clancy providing voiceovers. More often, Mr. Marconi summons the characters himself, suddenly transforming into an elderly matron who is charmed by Thomas’s concern for her wayward son, or a man whom Thomas takes for a fellow spirit before discovering raunchy pictures in his house.As Thomas goes on about his business, scribbling the various sins of his neighbors down in a notebook, Mr. Marconi adroitly walks the line between boyish intensity and mania. It’s a young woman, naturally, who drives him over the edge: Edel, a local girl whom Thomas assumes is an angel sent to be his partner in his mission to rescue Inishfree from damnation.To say the courtship ends disastrously would be an understatement. Just before Edel arrives on the scene, we get shattering proof of the extent of Thomas’s madness, and it’s a testament to the dexterity and depth of Mr. Marconi’s performance that at a recent preview, I responded to evidence of his capacity for brutality with as much pity as horror. Over its 90 minutes, then, this “Misterman”—which, sadly, only runs through July 5—not only confirms how devastating Mr. Walsh’s work remains, but serves as a showcase for a performer with what should be a very bright future.

Enda Walsh’s ‘Misterman’ Returns With a Mesmerizing Revival

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