Church

Church runs the Russell household below stairs with the crisp discipline of a man who understands that his employers' social ambitions rise or fall on the smoothness of a dinner service. As butler to Bertha and George Russell, he is exacting with the staff, correct with guests, and quietly attuned to every shift in the family's fortunes.

Jack Gilpin plays him with a stillness that suggests decades of swallowed opinions, letting small looks and clipped instructions do the work of commentary on the Russells' climb. In a show fascinated by status and performance, Church is the professional who has mastered his own performance completely, which makes his rare moments of feeling land hard.