(Posted 7/25/23) By Fern Siegel

Loneliness and a cruel childhood twist the human psyche in terrible ways.

Ironically, those most oppressed often defend the ideology that champions subjugation. In Catholic Ireland in 2020, that distorted hypocrisy is embedded in the character of Máire (Marie Mullen), an elderly woman who has finally discovered, at 67, the joys of sex and companionship.

She’s achieved this state with Martin, who is spoken of, but never seen.

We know her sad tale — and her newfound happiness — because Máire, possessed of a comic flair, has confessed to Jesus. He is tops in her book — placed far above all else. She envisions him in the mountains of Tibet, where he can find peace from “mass murders and screaming auld-ones having sex.”

The Saviour, now off-Broadway at the Irish Repertory Theatre, is a chamber piece that confronts psychological damage, religious hypocrisy and the challenges of parental care.

Máire, a widow, shares how Martin has changed her life, given her lackluster marriage. Her delight is palpable, as is her charm. We also learn the horrors of an older Ireland, a country run by an authoritarian and abusive Catholic Church. Máire has experienced the hell of the Magdalen Laundries, where young women were routinely brutalized.

Silence was part of the Magdalen ethos, and Máire turned to Jesus in her darkest hours. While her story is both painful — and more recently pleasurable — her opening monologue, effectively part one of the drama, is too long. Playwright Deirdre Kinahan has written an intimate and emotional play, but it needs tightening: less solo performance and more tension and familial exchange on the back end.

As The Saviour illustrates, the church’s stranglehold on the state, and the deep wounds it inflicts, are a sound argument for the separation between the two.

The issues of sin and forgiveness are paramount here. When she finds a devout Martin praying in church, Máire stumbles upon happiness. They click. It sounds like a second chance, but The Saviour has a twist.

And that’s part two of this dramatic diptych, delivered on a single turntable set.

Son Mel (a strong Jamie O’Neill) has news of Martin’s past. His mother is willing to forgive — believing that Martin’s devotion is evidence of penance. Her almost pathological refusal to spout anything save Catholic doctrine blinds her to a dangerous reality. O’Neill aptly captures the pain of a son who is insulted by his mother, yet cannot help but care for her.

Máire’s fixation on platitudes is exasperating, but strangely understandable, given the decades of dogma she endured. So, in part, is our pity for her blighted state. Mullen delivers a layered performance as a woman who fears the loss of happiness, even as she rejects the hell it creates.

The Saviour’s tension builds to a shattering state. Director Louise Lowe gets moving performances from her cast; they play a mother-son combo with convincing anger and sorrow. Myopia carries a high price — both for the individual and the family. Reality, illusion, faith and hypocrisy — all play out in modern Ireland. Playwrights like Kinahan are needed to expose the damage Catholicism has wrought — past and present.