Critics reveal themselves by their blind scribbling throughout any theater performance. Often, after a curtain call, an exiting audience member will lean in and whisper something akin to, “Can’t wait to read what that was all about.”
“Shining City” is one of those plays.
It’s easy enough to follow. The contemporary Irish tale isn’t dense, and the accents are understandable. But it’s a chameleonic little wicket that never fully reveals its true colors, even after its end.
Written by esteemed Irish playwright Conor McPherson and capably performed at the Miners Alley Playhouse in Golden, this sad and understated play wants to be about guilt, disconnection and how hard it can be to embrace our true natures. And it’s about ghosts of our own making.
But as a play, it’s all talk.
In a pub, with Guinness in hand, one can listen to an Irishman gab into the wee hours. But if the yakker’s emoting to a psychiatrist, it can grow numbing and feel voyeuristic.
“Shining City” takes place in the office of Ian (Josh Hartwell), an ineffective therapist (and ex-priest) who’s as conflicted as any patient. Wracked by sexual confusion, he’s leaving his wife and baby. What’s never clear is why he’s the focus of a story that becomes dominated by the only patient we meet.
John (a game Ken Street) goes on for long, long stretches telling a back story that would have played as better theater if only McPherson had let us see it rather than hear it. The writer’s most tangible point seems to be about the beneficial role ghosts may play in our recovery from life’s traumas. But for long stretches, Hartwell might as well join us in the audience while John goes on . . . and on. With Ian rarely chiming in, we never establish a believable therapist-patient relationship that might trigger effective dialogue on mutual disconnection.
John’s come to see Ian because he sees the ghost of his wife, who was been killed in a car accident. He’s tormented because of the distance that grew between them in their final months. In subsequent visits, he tells of awful attempts at meeting women that have left him angry and shamed. But at least he’s out there trying; a lesson patient unknowingly teaches doctor.
Poor Street gives it his all, displaying a wide pendulum from blithe malarkey to angst. But absent anyone to play off, his staccato monologues grow just as demanding on the audience as they are on the actor.
“Shining City” was written to be a tight, 90-minute play but, with an unscripted intermission at Miners Alley, it runs 35 minutes longer than that here.
The pacing is further slowed by extended scene transitions that poor Hartwell is made to execute himself, such as packing up his office. At times the stage is left empty for so long one wonders if the actors have left the building. This is the third time just this month I’ve seen such “stylized” scene transitions, and on behalf of all audiences, may I please just entreat all directors: Resist!
Director Richard H. Pegg gets a fine support scene from the reliable Laura Norman as Ian’s abandoned wife, but an equally awkward one involving a visitor to Ian who’s, well, no patient. Pegg’s set design evocatively establishes our place in a Dublin high-rise, and there are nice if gratuitous uses of lighting.
“Shining City” is a murky broth of psychological stew in which we should feel more compassion for a couple of poor sots trying to chart new courses in their lives. But the emotional impact never lands. And it ends with a final image that should pack a much greater visual punch than it does.
John Moore: 303-954-1056 or jmoore@denverpost.com
“Shining City” ** (out of four stars)
Irish drama. Presented by Miners Alley Playhouse, 1224 Washington Ave., Golden. Written by Conor McPherson. Starring Josh Hartwell and Ken Street. Through Feb. 15. 2 hours, 5 minutes. 7:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 6 p.m. Sundays (2 p.m. on Feb. 15). $20. 303-935-3044,
