Play of the Week: Shining City

Conor McPherson has given us another wonderful script in his short ghost story Shining City. Ian is at a crossroads in his life. He recently left the priesthood to become a therapist. His first, and possibly only client, is a man who has seen the ghost of his dead wife. Through the play we find that the two men as both essentially coping with the same problem. Both are devastatingly lonely and the actions they have taken to deal with their own loneliness have undeniable affected the lives of those close to them. And to top all of that off, each of them is so guilty about what they did, that they cannot own the consequences and undo the damage.

Through the course of the play, more and more of their story comes out, and the more that the past is brought out in the light, the more each of them is able to deal with where they find themselves in the present.