Shining City. Photo by Peter Wynn Thompson. Playwright: Conor McPherson. At: Goodman Theatre, 170 N. Dearborn. Phone: 312-443-3800; $20-$70.Runs through: Feb. 17.
Shining City defines superlative acting. Short on plot but long on character, this 95-minute play offers four emotionally potent scenes with an immense monologue in Scene Three, plus a concluding scene. Eschewing the high concepts for which he is known, director Robert Falls wisely puts his four performers on center stage while invisibly but caringly guiding them—and the audience—through the complexities of each character.
Shining City takes place in affluent modern Dublin, Ireland, in the large, slightly shabby and chilly apartment/office of Ian, who has left the priesthood and become a psychotherapist. Middle-aged John, a new patient, is panicked and terrified as he describes vivid hauntings by his wife, who died a few months earlier in a car crash. In the centerpiece monologue, John discusses his marital infidelities both emotional and physical; the former of long standing and the latter planned but never actually executed. Woven through John's guilt-stricken discourse are threads of existential angst, faith or lack thereof, and the need to seek some semblance of fulfillment in life if such is possible. Saying little, Ian leads John to a satisfactory 'cure,' although the play is not about John's therapy.
In fact, John is the antagonist of Shining City and Ian is the hero. John may do most of the talking, but Ian initiates the play's few actions as the metaphysics underlying John's dialogue slap against Ian. Having fathered a child with his long-supportive fiancé, Ian now sends her packing in a devastating scene of betrayal. Later, the sexually conflicted Ian engages a hustler for his first gay experience, movingly staged as a combination of paralyzing panic and sobbing emotion.
At the 75-minute mark, author Conor McPherson still is providing new character revelations and one wonders how he'll tie them up in the final minutes. Well, he doesn't. McPherson completes John's story as John happily moves on with life. But the still-conflicted Ian's story will continue long after the curtain falls ,as McPherson makes clear in a gasp-inducing surprise in the closing seconds. As the Irish say, the 'crack' ( the talk ) is excellent, despite which Shining City ( a metaphor for heaven ) really is a shaggy dog story complete with punchline. Existential angst aside, it could boil down to a half-hour Twilight Zone episode.
So, yes, it's all about the acting. In ascending order of importance, the uniformly truthful players are Keith Gallagher as the surprisingly gentle hustler, Nicole Wiesner as the anguished fiancé in the most explosive scene, Jay Whittaker holding focus as the deeply-internalizing Ian and the remarkable John Judd as the patient. Always possessing a sharp edge, Judd has matured into an actor of rich nuance as well. It's a rare pleasure to see an all-Chicago cast under Falls's direction.