The Dark Shining City

Beowulf Alley Theatre has, for two years running, been cursed with a little bad luck in their opening productions. That bad luck has a name but you won’t see us report it here. I say bad luck, but to be clear, in both cases the issue resolved itself to the company’s gain. Last year’s production of Albee’s Seascape had much to admire and this year’s production of Conor McPherson’s Shining City does as well. While I’m making a list of things to admire, I’ll begin by tipping my hat for doing this play as a season opener. Shining City is a haunting, elegiac play about love, loss and the travails of miscommunication. McPherson, like Pinter or Mamet, often peoples his plays with beautifully inarticulate characters, whose inability to express themselves becomes a sort of poetry in itself. Shining City is not an easy play to do. I am grateful for theatre companies that take risks and seek challenges. And Beowulf Alley takes risks.

John, a widower, comes to a therapist’s office to seek relief. He has seen his late wife’s ghost. Racked by guilt and remorse, he is literally haunted by the events that lead to her death and his crushing grief. Ian, a former priest with a few regrets himself, attempts to help him but struggles with his own demons as well. The play is deceptively simple but I was impressed by director Susan Arnold’s trust in her actors. There is no pointless roaming of the stage or forced histrionics. Beowulf Alley Theatre is a comfy cozy ninety-nine seat theater. The actors act the length and breadth of the space.



David Greenwood assumed the role of John late in the rehearsal by all accounts. His performance, while still raw, is emotionally honest and moving. Greenwood makes honest choices, no doubt with help from director Arnold, who coaxed outstanding performances out of her Last of the Boys cast. This is a role that is almost impossible to do with little rehearsal. I saw this production opening night (Saturday, 9-11) and intend to see it again on closing night. Greenwood’s performance will grow. Candidly, it was incomplete Saturday night. I suspect it will be outstanding for the rest of the run. Don't miss it.



Jared Stokes as Ian, the priest turned therapist, has a slightly more problematic performance. Stokes' Ian is complex and troubled. He is doing subtle things with excellent use of his body and posture. But McPherson is Irish and the Shining City is Dublin. The four actors in this performance must accomplish the brogue (Beowulf’s also doing McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leanane) without sounding like a Lucky Charms ad. Stokes struggles with this. It distracts and detracts from a subtle performance. A very naturalistic play becomes less so under the influence of dodgy accents. Laura Lippman and Lucas Gonzalez both impress in minor parts. While they, too, were hardly authentic in their accented speech, they maintained character integrity. Gonzalez has grown as an actor and needs a real challenge. Laura Lippman brought fantastic energy and passion to her scene. Shining City is a delicate play, the performances are everything.


The set was serviceable and the lighting subtle and well done. There are some special lighting effects toward the end of the play that seem a bit overwrought. Director Arnold makes unfortunate choices with the scene changes, elongating them with pointless striking of minor props, all done by Stokes. The ghost story needs pace and the ending loses any punch and much sense if one doesn’t arrive there in reasonable amount of time.



Shining City is a poignant study in Irish Catholic guilt, the mysteries of fate, life and death, told in a language both inarticulate and soaring. Beowulf Alley Theatre’s production will ripen this weekend and soar. This production has great merit and sometimes it becomes necessary for a critic to review the audience. We should as playgoers seek these plays of craft, performances of subtlety and productions of risk as well as our need for entertainment and light. Shining City is dark, dark and beautiful. And Beowulf Alley lets it sparkle in the gloaming.

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---Jem Street