THE SIN HUNTER

An unsettling and darkly funny
portrait of moral obsession

Daniel Marconi

Enda Walsh’s Misterman is probably theatre’s longest continuous nervous breakdown, and Origin Theatre Company‘s revival at Theater Row, presented as part of the 2026 Origin Irish Theatre Festival, is a fascinating production directed by Labhaoise Magee, starring Daniel Marconi as Thomas Magill.

Daniel Marconi

Walsh’s brilliant concept transcends borders: Thomas is the lonely, devout, self-appointed moral watchdog of the fictional town of Inishfree, Ireland. Every small town, in every corner of the world, seems to produce its own self-appointed guardian of morality, and Thomas wanders through his community cataloguing sins with the diligence of an accountant during tax season. Nothing remotely serious: a neighbor’s dog that barks too much, a boy who does not help his mother, a woman who is too forward, or a man who is simply rude. Nobody asked him to do this and nobody wants him to do it either, yet Thomas proceeds as if God had outsourced quality control directly to him, desperately trying to hold together a reality that is coming apart.

Daniel Marconi

The play unfolds inside his mind; the voices of Mammy, Edel (voice-overs by Úna Clancy and Mabel Byrne), and his neighbors erupt from tape recorders to form conversations, memories, fantasies, and accusations that make us understand the character and his surroundings. His moral crusade becomes a theatrical life-support machine, and yet Misterman never turns into a gloomy lecture on madness, always retaining a wicked comic energy.

Daniel Marconi

The sound design externalizes Thomas’s fractured consciousness and his deteriorating perception of reality while conjuring the entire community of Inishfree from a single actor on stage. It is an intricate act of theatrical ventriloquism, an orchestration of unseen voices, and Marconi carries it off with passion and skill. His character’s self-righteousness is so excessive that it circles back into comedy even in the most dramatic moments, and costume designer Khari Walser understands the irony, dressing him as the well-behaved boy next door who might unravel before your eyes.

Daniel Marconi

Enda Walsh makes sound the architecture of Thomas’s mind, so the audience hears his psychological collapse before they fully comprehend it. It’s an exceptionally intricate score, one that leaves very little room for error; I attended the opening-night performance, which experienced a few sound-design hiccups by Elliot Yokum, but happily they proved to be opening-night gremlins rather than flaws.

Daniel Marconi

Scenic design by Silin Chen and lighting design by Shane Hennessy embrace a deliberately stripped-back, industrial aesthetic; a scaffold, a few battered pieces of furniture, a makeshift table, and a vintage reel-to-reel tape deck create a world as fractured and disorderly as Thomas’s own mind. Exposed lighting and a strand of exposed bulbs hanging lazily across the stage complete the look.

Daniel Marconi

The result feels like being invited inside somebody else’s psychosis. It is a work of emotional and intellectual resonance, threaded with humor, shadowed by darkness, and guided by an unmistakably individual vision.

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photos by Daniel Rader

Misterman
Origin Theatre Company
Theater Row, 410 W. 42nd St. in New York
Tue–Sat 7; Sat & Sun 2
ends on July 5, 2026
for tickets ($39–$69), visit Origin Theatre Company

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