Shining City by Conor McPherson
Just in case anyone is thinking of having a swell evening at this play, let me discourage you. Unless you've found McPherson's other plays (The Weir, for instance) riveting, of course. I was hoping for a real tour-de-force based on the NYTimes review - what was I thinking? Brantley, et al. have been disappointing me for years.
Shining City is predictable, banal, long-winded (how can a 90 minute play be long-winded??), and unsatisfying. No question that the acting was fine: Brian F O'Byrne is a wonderful actor who could probably make the Project Workbench manual exciting, Oliver Platt was working really hard to make his endless monologue of attempted infidelity interesting, Martha Plimpton and Peter Scanavino were fine in their one-scene parts - and who cared? What a waste.
It was almost bad enough for me to wish for a beep from work. But only almost.
But, the sun is shining, the beeper is silent, the house is (relatively) clean and neat, and it's the weekend. Things are ok.
Shining City is predictable, banal, long-winded (how can a 90 minute play be long-winded??), and unsatisfying. No question that the acting was fine: Brian F O'Byrne is a wonderful actor who could probably make the Project Workbench manual exciting, Oliver Platt was working really hard to make his endless monologue of attempted infidelity interesting, Martha Plimpton and Peter Scanavino were fine in their one-scene parts - and who cared? What a waste.
It was almost bad enough for me to wish for a beep from work. But only almost.
But, the sun is shining, the beeper is silent, the house is (relatively) clean and neat, and it's the weekend. Things are ok.