for Best Play was an interesting category: Only one American author alongside two Irish scribes and a Brit, Alan Bennet, who won for the fabulous History Boys.
Having read all four plays, I found the two Irish entries, including Shining City, weaker than History Boys and Rabbit Hole.
Shining City is so weighed down by naturalist dialogue that the play, on page, becomes borderline incomprehensible.
Im always impressed by playwrights who can capture conversational tics and the natural beats of normal chatter, but Shining City is so bogged down by pauses, I think and you know that it almost reads as a mocking take on colloquial dialogue.
Honestly, the dialogue was so distracting that the socalled plot fades into the background,
Theres a good chance it comes across better as a performance, but as a play to be read, this ones a huge miss.
Not recommended. I've seen three of Conor McPherson's plays and read the others, Some of them you really have to see on stage to enjoy, but I don't think this is not one of them.
I em didn't like, uh, care for either of unspoken: these plays,.stars
Huh! What an interesting little play! I rather liked that, My one big complaint is that it seemed like the playwright challenged himself to write “you know” into literally every single line, and honestly it gave me a bit of a headache.
I can't really rate this adequately because it is meant to be performed, and I think the kind of stilted, stammering dialogue McPherson writes really begs for a dramatic reading.
That being said, the plays here seem to be addressing the notion of belief and the rewards to be gained from faith and a spiritual life.
. . but more importantly, the damage that a lack of faith in institutions, religion, love, etc, can have on an individual, . . provocative, but perhaps stronger in the subtext than the text, I was thinking as I was reading it that this was one of McPherson's lesser works, Something where the supernatural element was so slight and the issues of the characters were too much in the foreground without his usual carefully wrought balance of the two.
Until the last page,
I will say nothing more except that this is on par with the two plays of his I love The Weir and The Seafarer.
Shining City has been an unqualified critical success and quite possibly Conor McPhersons finest work, In Dublin, a man seeks help from a counselor, claiming to have seen the ghost of his recently deceased wife.
But what begins as just an unusual encounter becomes a struggle between the living and deada struggle that will shape and define both men for the rest of their lives.
Also included here is the oneact, Come on Over, about a Jesuit priest sent to investigate a “miracle” in his hometown, where he reencounters the woman who loved himyears before.
Conor McPherson was born in Dublin, Ireland, where he still lives, His plays include This Lime Tree Bower, St, Nicholas, The Weir, Port Authority and Dublin Carol, Of all the dialogue, it was John's soliloquy that really pulled me in,
I wish we were able to explore more of his interest in Ian, the same way he poured out his soul while narrating his tryst with Vivien.
If his ghosts were invoked by both, it seems like what John really wants isn't a lover, more a person who could listen to him.
Really, what a selfcentered dude who is made out to be a poor guilttorn soul eh
Overall, worthwhile read.
Thanks for introducing me to Conor Mcpherson, Brendan Coyle, my current obsession from Downton Abbey! This is, mostly, a ghost story that's familiar terrain for author Conor McPherson, who here places his trademark monodrama style within a more traditional multicharacter play format.
Ian, a priestturnedpsychologist, is the protagonist of this piece, and in two sharply written scenes we meet his fiancée, Neasa, who becomes increasingly desperate as she realizes that Ian is serious about dissolving their relationship, and a young man named Laurence with whom he engages in some tentative romancing as a kind of test of his true orientation and nature.
But for most of Shining City, we observe Ian in the presence of one of his patients, a businessman named John who is having a rough time getting over the death of his wife.
She was killed in a freakish tragic accident, but as John's reminiscences proceed we come to understand that it wasn't just the terrible suddenness of her death that has turned his life upside downhe is carrying around with him huge wads of guilt, some earned, some perhaps not.
His sessions with Ianin particular one at the center of the play in which he recounts the history of a mild extramarital liaisonhelp us discover the ghosts that are haunting John, and help him exorcise them.
They also awaken the ghosts that Ian is trying to flee from, Whether the physician is able to heal himself I will leave for you to discover and decide for yourself.
Shining City, by Conor McPherson,, Jeannette and I saw this play at the Goodman Theater in Chicago in February of, Very fine play, well acted and will written, “Youll be all right, youll be all right” words of grace from a brothel bouncer to a man who was lost and then found.
I would like to see another play by McPherson, Ever feel a certain character gets too much stage time In McPherson's ineffective ghost story "Shining City," a former priest's counseling client rambles on forpages with scant interruption.
And he talks endlessly elsewhere too! His narration of the events leading up to his wife's gruesome death is somehow too real and too banal.
I'd have preferred more of the therapist's workingclass baby mama or the poor male prostitute he picks up instead.
"Shining City" isn't terrible nor is "Come on Over," its companion, But with McPherson, I'm used to be thrilled, not intermittently entertained, Want to discuss Scary good, Modern theater suffers from a small circulation of recycled tropes and formulaic charactertypes, There are several powerful moments in the script for this particular play, but it does not set itself apart as a masterpiece of theater whose vivacity carries over to the typed page.
Had to read it twice to get where the author was trying to go, Got there, finally, but it was a trek, As a playwright myself, I understand the distance between the page and the stage, however, this ghost story seemed to have more dead air than dead people.
But the final moment of the play was, in fact, a genuine hairraising theatrical gesture,
MARCH
sitelink by sitelinkConor McPherson no photo
Finish date:March
Genre: Play
Rating: F
:
Bad news: This confessional chat scenepatient therapist was supposed to be the climax of the play.
Well, it was just an excruciating read, Scenes,andwere no better: there was a ghost, expriest, fiancé, baby, coddling wife, love affair with text messages, a gigolo.
. . and a fight in a brothel,
Bad news: McPherson tries to mirror the private lives of the patient John and therapist Ian.
Both have huge secrets from spouse/fiancé, . . both want to " believe that something else is my reality" but the whole concept of the play felt like wading through thick mud, and I found myself longing desperately for some clear, unambiguous writing.
Dialogue is so awful that the play becomes borderline incomprehensible:
Mmm
Okay
Well, Im, you know
No, no no
No one finished their sentences.
. . ever!
Good news Stage directions were better than the play!
Personal: What did I just read.
. . it was a 'train wreck' of a play, Just awful. Scenes filled with hohums, empty chatterjust NO feeling that Ive read a brilliant play, I never expected to read such a boring piece of writing by Conor McPherson, I really enjoyed his play The Weir Shining City is such a huge disappointment.
I still cannot find the link between the play and the title Am I missing something This is THE WORST Irish play Ive ever read!
WasteOfMyReadingTime Seen at the Royal Theatre Stratford on
I say more a.
star, but I have some irks with this one as much as I loved parts of it, I think for most of it, it provides this unique, harsh insight into male isolation, drifting emotions, and psyche that is incredibly hard to put into words.
Maybe it's because the last three plays I saw had gay romance as a primary story driver but I feel like it cut to the core of this type of despondent heterosexuality that making the lead character gay almost felt like an improper resolution to the really tough questions it set up in the beginning, trading it for a now more common type of tragic story.
John is the most interesting character by far, although the side characters interest me a lot and I'm curious where they might end up.
I get how the ghost is meant that like, Ian is going to be haunted by the same decisions he's making of staying the course but like it's not as impactful or consistent with what they were working with earlier on.
Just so disappointed about how it didn't resolve this idea it set up more, This was weird but interesting. I enjoyed it! I wanted to read this for a few years now, but once I graduated from Cuse I was over reading plays and dissecting them.
I picked this back up and finally read it this morning, It was an interesting play in terms of the characters relationships and their secrets, It felt real to me the dialogue is very Mametesque with the talking over one another and barely getting out a coherent thought.
I think I'd still prefer The Seafarer over this play though, I've had mixed feelings about this text, When I first read it I was bored out of my mind, Then I read it again and saw a glimmer of something, I heard a scene read out loud and was amazed, I have a feeling that after I sit through and watch ittimes in a row I will be bored out of my mind.
Lucky for you, that's just me, You'll probably love it. McPherson's play examines identity, sex, secrecy, repression in a confessional context that brings it into the realm of belief and loss of belief.
The naturalism is perfectly portrayed, but placing it in the context of 'a ghost' and a break up adds a mirror to heighten the intensity.
The psychological effect on both men is played out over an extended period of time, leading to a moving and unnerving denouement.
I thought this play was really beautiful, and I loved the ending, The parallels between the two central male characters were striking, but McPherson also let them build without spelling them out.
. . I love the silences and the incomplete sentences and the hesitations, I think the monologues would be even more powerful performed duh, I also liked the way the scenes connected with one another without being strictly drawn from one another.
The audience is allowed to do a lot of their own psychological, associative work that way, There was a second play called "Come On Over," maybe in the volume that I found very disturbing.
This may mean it's a powerful, amazing play, but I haven't gotten beyond my disturbed reaction to that one yet.
I thought "Shining City" offered more possibilities for redemption to its characters and maybe viewers, and I responded to that more.
I didn't read this, but I saw it put on by a local theatre group, It was an amazing play and I highly recommend it, Okay We are treated to two scenes that feel superfluous when the obvious action is between John and Ian.
Terrible dialogue to read, but apparently fantastic as a live performance, The ending made me want to reread, but I can't put myself through that again, In scene three of Conor McPhersons play Shining City, John, a widower who believes his deceased wifes ghost is haunting him, confides to Ian, his therapist: “I just want to have a transaction where some normal rules apply again, you know” John, like Ian, is battling with issues of identity, but McPherson intelligently connects identity with themes of sexuality and existence.
For McPherson, these themes are not independent therefore, to address one is to consider all, He focuses all three themes on one subject: religion,
The published text of Shining City also includes the short play “Come On Over, ” In the former, Ian is an expriest turned therapist, a man who has abandoned his girlfriend and their baby.
He is a man who is on the cusp of living as an open homosexual but who ultimately cannot cross that threshold.
In the short play, Matthew was once a priest of “strong” faith, but after he is brutally stabbed in the face by a young girl he was molesting, he loses his trust in God.
With both Ian and Matthews characters, McPherson raises complex questions about sexuality and the Catholic Church, Ian leaves the priesthood but although he comes close, he cannot live honestly with his sexual preference, Matthew in “Come On Over” seems to have repressed his sexual desires until he can no longer control them.
For both Ian and Matthew, sexuality is a forcea power so strong and so long deniedthat it damages innocent lives when it is finally released: Ians wife and Patience, the young girl Matthew molested.
If you read both Shining City
and “Come On Over,” an alternative question also emerges, Is McPhersons purpose with Ian and Matthew to warn about the dangers of priests abandoning God Is his intention grounded in more traditional Christian principles Both Ian and Matthew abandon God as much as they feel abandoned by God, and the reality of this, as Ive stated, is emotionally, physically, and spiritually violent to others.
Indeed, Ians life seems to lack substantial meaning after he leaves the priesthood, At the end of Shining City, John mentions that Ian doesnt believe in ghosts the bridge to Holy Ghost is not a long one to cross here.
Ian responds, “John, there was a time I wouldve given anything to see one, Just to know that there wassomething else, Do you know what I mean/Just something else, besides all theyou knowthe pain and confusion, Just something that gave everythingsome meaning, you know Im talking about God, really, you know”
McPherson does not provide simple solutions in either play.
He addresses religion as directly relating to how we see our existence in the world, and he does so in a thoughtprovoking, shocking, and surprisingly tender manner.
.