TACT/The Actors Company Theatre revives Frank Marcus’s caustically sensationalistic 1964 English drama

Frank Marcus’s rarely performed, absurd and pitch-black The Killing of Sister George sits in an unsettling space between farce and drama, often compelling but unseasonably dry. The play depicts beloved BBC radio actor June Buckridge (played with steely fortitude by Caitlin O’Connell) in a volatile long-term relationship that vacillates between sadistic power play and downright abuse. Despite answering to her character’s name off-air, “George” is anything but the selfless nun she plays, and as her career becomes threatened by a drunken altercation, she veers even further from piety. Drew Barr’s sharp revival for TACT/The Actors Company Theatre mines the complexity of this schizoid character.