Third Rail Repertory bills their current production of Irish
playwright Conor McPherson’s Shining City as a ghost
story—in his notes in the program, director Slayden Scott
Yarbrough treats us to a slew of ghost-related anecdotes, about
sightings and hauntings both apocryphal (his infamously haunted alma
mater) and personal (his own father’s ghost sighting).
Despite the cutesy director’s notes, though, it doesn’t seem quite
correct to file Shining City in the same category as Ghost
Dad: The play doesn’t assume or imply the existence of the
paranormal. Ghosts here are purely symbolic, with a meaning that is
teased out over the course of this well-tuned show.
Ian (Michael O’Connell) is a priest-turned-psychiatrist who has
recently left his girlfriend and child and set up practice in his own
apartment. The entirety of the intermission-less play is set in his
office, with scenes ping-ponging between Ian’s efforts to resolve his
complicated personal life, and his sessions with John, a patient having
trouble dealing with the death of his wife. (John sought help after
seeing his recently deceased wife’s “ghost” in their house.)
The play’s construction is precise and literary, each scene arranged
with an almost musical sensibility (an impression reinforced by the
“passage of time” interludes betweenscenes, scored with moody guitar).
Playwright McPherson neatly balances the show’s structural formality
with loose, natural dialogue and ordinary-seeming characters. Bruce
Burkhartsmeier is particularly unaffected as John: His hesitations and
stammerings in his first therapy session immediately beg the question:
Are we watching a highly accomplished actor portraying a confused and
traumatized man, or is Burkhartsmeier just having trouble with his
lines? Fortunately it soon becomes clear that the former is the case,
and Burkhartsmeier carries the show as an uncomplicated man moving
through a complicated psychological crisis.
The show takes a while to get rolling, in part because the accents
can be distracting—the only actor who manages to make it through
an entire scene, brogue intact, is the excellent Val Landrum as John’s
ex-girlfriend Neasa. (It’s worth making the effort, though, to preserve
the rhythms of McPherson’s language.) Bear out the first few minutes,
and the show will reward you. Once John begins to reveal the complexity
of his feelings for his wife, and once the true extent of Ian’s own
issues become clear, Shining City develops an irresistible
momentum, with the play’s elegant structure bolstered by thoughtful
performances, for yet another solid production from Third Rail.