"Shining City" at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, IL -- February 2, 2008

Today I have a guest. My colleague and friend, Christy Uchida, sees even more theater than I do. She went to see "Shining City" at the Goodman, a show I wasn't planning to see, and agreed to share her comments on my blog. So, here they are. Thanks, Christy.

“73% of Americans believe in the paranormal” claim the bus tails and other creepy advertisements currently promoting A&E’s show Paranormal State. However, it’s the paranormal event at the end of Conor McPherson’s compelling play “Shining City” currently at the Goodman Theatre that didn’t work for me. The preceding 90+ intermissionless minutes convincingly conveyed our society’s craving for “connection in an isolating age.” And the characters’ flailing attempts at connection are portrayed with humanity and humor. I don’t want to play the spoiler, because the ending was theatrically effective as evidenced by the audience’s (and my own) startled reaction. But it makes me wonder if these types of shocking tricks are necessary to cut through the clutter of all the realism in theater. (See Christopher Piatt’s excellent review of The Hypocrites’ “Miss Julie” for a comment on deconstructing American Realism in theater: http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/theater/25906/miss-julie)

McPherson is certainly considered to be one of the most talented young Irish playwrights—“Shining City” was nominated for three Tonys in 2006. And the heightened naturalism of his writing is compared to Mamet. Apparently he began is career writing monologues, which is evident in the long soliloquies that have led some to criticize the play for being too talky. But what else should a play about a bereaved man and his therapist be except talky?

The play is simple. Middle-aged John is recently widowed when his wife is killed in a horrific car accident. In his grief and guilt created by a near infidelity shortly before his wife’s death, he believes he has been seeing the ghost of his wife and seeks the advice of a therapist, Ian. While it initially appears that the man seeking therapy is the wreck, we realize that it’s really the therapist’s life that’s much more screwed up. The subtle shift throughout the play masterfully unravels Ian’s character, and leads us to think how much do we know about professionals we seek advice from? Effectively the costuming—Ian begins as a buttoned-up therapist and ends in a t-shirt and jeans, while John begins disheveled and ends in his salesman’s power suit—reveals the shift. Interestingly, the same irrational homophobia that appears in “Good Boys and True” (see entry below) prevents Ian from being able to have the human connection he craves. The paranormal event at the end hits us over the head to signal that the younger Ian is also settling for a lifetime of second best.

“Shining City” is brilliantly acted with John Judd as John and Jay Whittaker as Ian, recalling the tremendous two-character production of Caryl Churchill’s “A Number” that featured John and Jay at Next Theatre a couple of seasons ago. I wish I could have seen “Shining City” in an intimate venue like Next—we were too far away in the balcony to fully appreciate the incredible acting. And while the production values were excellent as always, the over-resourced Goodman unnecessarily created thunder and lightening in Christopher Akerlind’s lighting design and running water and a flushing toilet in Obadiah Eaves’ sound design that didn’t add value to the script at all. The show would have been just as good, and more accessible, at the type of small, gritty off-Loop space that makes Chicago theater great.

Robert Falls’ production of “Shining City” moves from the Goodman to the Huntington Theatre in Boston this spring, another regional theater too rich and too big for this simple play. But at least large audiences are exposed to high quality new theater this way