Brian Dennehy is one of America's finest actors, but he comes a cropper in The Steward of Christendom, which is part of a series of linked family plays by Irish playwright, Sebastian Barry. Dennehy has a tour de forcerole as the aged ex-Dublin police chief, Thomas Dunne, now living out his last, infirm days in a mental institution (circa 1932). A Catholic, Dunne worked for the British Crown, an act that condemned him as a traitor when the Irish war of independence led to a regime change in 1922.
Shunted aside by history and by most of his family and friends, he spends his time in a cell, clad in filthy long johns, ruminating over past times, the good and bad things that have happened to him. Hurt and shamed as he is by his fall from power and position, he still believes he did the right thing in his post as head of the Metropolitan Police, defending law and order on behalf of the Queen and Christianity.
Barry gives Thomas Dunne a torrent of words to say, a virtual Niagara of memories, recollections and poetic sallies, broken up only occasionally by visits from the hospital staff or his three daughters, only one of whom has any affection for him (shades of King Lear).
Dennehy captures the poignancy of this broken (but sympathetic) man, but he fails to handle the verbal challenges of this difficult role. Straining for an authentic Irish accent, he mangles much of the text, rendering it largely unintelligible, even when amplified by house hearing-aids. That's unforgivable in a long play that is close to being a monologue.
The blame for this doesn't lie solely with Dennehy, of course; the play's director and producer should have their knuckles rapped as well.
