Shining City

Domestic angst in Dublin. In Shining City by Conor McPherson, directed by Robert Falls, the actors (Brian F. O'Byrne, Oliver Platt, Martha Plimpton, Peter Scanavino) are all excellent, the set by Santo Loquasto, Christopher Akerlind's lighting, costumes by Kaye Voyce and the choice of music are all quite good, and they do properly fulfill the piece. But the play didn't engage me because of the ordinariness of its lengthy expositional passages. It's basically a long psychotherapy for Platt's character, in which he goes on and on in not-fascinating stories. Who wants to sit in on material with no interesting ideas and no wit -- just ordinary recounting with a tiny bit of humor based on our recognition of behavior? Not me.

O'Byrne plays a divorced (from Plimpton) ex-priest therapist whose own life is an emotional mess as he tries to find his personal sexual path. The most interesting scene is his encounter with a low-IQ male prostitute in which we are present while something happens, rather than something being talked about.