Sullivan played Memphis, owner of a Pittsburgh diner about to be torn down, in American Stage’s excellent production of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running. Sullivan’s Memphis was a demanding businessman, an indefatigable justice-seeker, a fast-talking local hero who could also be unreasonable and short-tempered. Again and again, Sullivan showed us Memphis’ strengths and failings as a Rembrandt might: without judgment, without irony, with only a microscopic attention to detail. And the result was, we came away from the character awed by the dazzling, and wondrously inexplicable radiance of his humanity.
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2014.