The Man Himself

Alan Drury’s The Man Himself explores an everyman’s drift to religious right extremism. When alienation and hate take-over Michael’s secure and stable world, he SNAPS, finding comfort in the Christian right. A horrifically comic wake-up call! Starring Ami Dayan.

The National Theatre in London first produced the play in 1975.

Press Quotes:

“The deep-set eyes of the actor Ami Dayan – now wounded, now piercing, now glistening with righteous anger – tell a story of their own in The Man Himself, a sober, quietly unsettling solo show about an ordinary man’s slide toward religious fanaticism…As Mr. Drury and Mr. Dayan delicately but hauntingly illustrate in this hour-long show, [fanaticism] is a psychological state engendered all too easily. The achievement of Mr. Drury’s play, and of Mr. Dayan’s compelling interpretation of it, is in how it exposes alienation as a commonplace state of mind.” – Charles Isherwood, The New York Times

“It’s riveting… Dayan not only silences astonished onlookers, he keeps them so quiet there isn’t even a cough in the room nor a shuffled foot. [Dayan]’s acting is impeccably subtle…[he] is just as fascinating here as he was playing the highly athletic man in his adaptation of Dario Fo’s A Tale of a Tiger.”
– David Finkle, TheaterMania.com

“Dayan is a master” – Variety