The Huntington's "Shining City": a short story made into a play

That a therapist would himself be in less-than-admirable moral or psychic shape is a truism. The play is based on that, and there's a parallel between the stories of Ian, the young ex-priest turned therapist, and his patient, John.

I thought it was fairly good theater. A bit static, since the heart of the play was really John's recitation of events off stage, troubling events that had happened earlier. There are one or two short stories basically being read aloud. And they would have been fine as literature. Here, they are dressed up as theater (with theater prices).

John the therapy patient (a middle aged fellow grieving the death of his wife from an accident, who believes his house is haunted with her ghost) recalls their life together and, in particular, his clumsy attempt to have an affair with an attractive woman he met at a party not long before his wife died. The affair was never consummated, as both people timidly, and wisely, shrunk back at the last moment.

There are plays that a group of actors with modest acting abilities would do well in, but this isn't one of them. Because so much of the play depends on the ability of a particular actor -- John -- to act and recite his story, without an excellent actor we would have a dreadful play. As it was, the four actors were very good, and we had scenes of good theater. (Well, at least I was able to understand about 70% of what the actors said, given their heavy Irish accents.)

There's a lot here that makes no sense at all -- Ian (the ex priest) brings a loutish "rent boy" to his apartment, Ian decides to move to be closer to his "fiance" (who is taking care of their daughter), and the appearance of a ghost in Ian's apartment in the last instant of the play (a silly and illogical attempt to strengthen the parallel to John's story). Our focus is painfully narrowed on the individual characters as they give their long monologues (like seeing a closeup on a movie screen for a long, long time).

Yet, I feel like I've seen decent Irish theater -- at least these are live flesh and blood characters, with live flesh and blood problems.