Black races purposefully and triumphantly through a role filled with stumbling blocks, never setting a foot wrong and in the process giving one of the memorable performances of this season. Finbar Lynch 's Canary Jim is the still, threateningly quiet eye of Nightingales ' hurricane. Canary Jim is a man superior to, but at the mercy of the brutal men surrounding him. Every word must be judiciously chosen, every action evaluated for its potential to delay his upcoming parole. Lynch prowls the stage ever in a state of high tension, as if his guts had been tied in knots by fear for so long he has forgotten any other way.
Every breath tastes the air for any change in temper.
To play a scene at this pitch is not difficult for any good actor. To sustain it through all its variations over the course of an evening is, I would have said prior to witnessing Mr. Lynch's performance, impossible. Exhilarating and exhausting. From his first entrance he is on a roll, pulling out all the stops in a performance that, for its sheer energy and grand manner, puts every other actor in a 200-mile radius to shame. Also of note, the Goldie of Sandra Searles Dickinson is ethereal perfection, ringing as true as crystal champagne flutes in a wedding toast.