Shining City

Description
Much of Conor McPherson's Dublin-set 2004 play involves a widower (mesmeric John Judd) who believes he's haunted by the specter of his dead wife guiltily recounting to his nebbishy shrink (Jay Whittaker) a near-extramarital encounter. The uninterrupted story is pretty spooky—grown-up ghost stories are McPherson's trick—but to hold up a flashlight to one's face, as it were, on a mammoth, panoramic stage looks like a tiny dot on the horizon. And the final twist is dollar-store cheap. Still, Robert Falls's staging utilizes a quartet of excellent actors, and Judd and Whittaker offer two of the most resonant performances in recent Goodman memory.—CP