The Saviour Off-Broadway Reviews

Under the wire-taut direction of Louise Lowe, the confrontation that follows rises in emotional temperature with disorienting speed. Máire refuses to believe what Mel tells her, scorning the idea of looking at the evidence Mel flourishes on his phone. Ms. Mullen reveals through Máire’s increasing physical agitation and scorching voice her rising anger and outrage at having her private life spied upon. Making bold denials, she justifies herself by saying that at least Martin brought “a little happiness into the loneliness of this house.”

How Máire reacts in the remaining 70 minutes, how her religious convictions in regard to her beloved Jesus prevail – or don’t– won’t be revealed here. But Mullen’s superior performance as an aging woman holding tenaciously to the possibility of new romance is further enhanced, just as religion is kept from gaining any kind of upper hand.

I’ll admit I found the tonal shifts that accompany this development a bit jarring. When Mullen’s Máire is alone with her invisible Son of God, her confessions and revelations tickle and sting; once her own son, played by an adroit and appealing Jamie O’Neill, enters the picture, their increasingly heated conversation is less tempered by levity, or wit. And those twists, while dramatically engaging, seem a bit contrived—the first in its sheer awfulness, the other in its conspicuous topicality. Aoife Kavanagh’s sound design, likewise, can be aggressively ominous, particularly as the play reaches its chilling conclusion.