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Buffalo Theatre Ensemble creates chilly, ghostly 'City'

Irish playwright Conor McPherson is known for infusing otherworldly twists into his modern-day dramas like “The Weir” and “The Seafarer.” The same is also true of his 2004 drama “Shining City,” now being presented in a well-performed production by Buffalo Theatre Ensemble at College of DuPage's McAninch Arts Center in Glen Ellyn.

“Shining City” focuses on a 54-year-old widower named John (Gary Simmers), who claims to have seen the ghost of his late wife. All was not well with the couple when she died in a horrific car accident, so John reaches out for help from a Dublin therapist to deal with his debilitating fear and guilt.

But John's therapist, a former priest and new parent named Ian (Robert Jordan Bailey), has huge marital woes of his own. We soon learn that Ian has temporarily separated from his teary wife, Neasa (Lisa Dawn Foertsch), in a confrontational argument involving money, work, spiteful in-laws and whether or not they were truly ready to become parents.

McPherson is unflinching as he unfolds the many wrongs his male characters have inflicted on their spouses in “Shining City.” But that willingness to show the unsavory side of both John and Ian also makes them very human as they try to make sense of their lives.

Director Bryan Burke steers particularly good performances from Simmers as the widower John and Bailey as the conflicted therapist Ian. Simmer's halting and rueful recounting of the ways he wronged his wife pulls the audience in, while Bailey's troubled pauses and fixated stares give clues to the inner turmoil Ian is facing. (A late-night office visit from Nick Bender playing an unemployed young man named Laurence exposes just what difficult personal issues and deceit Ian is working through.)

Foertsch certainly is convincing as the aggrieved wife Neasa, though some might question the wide age difference between her and the casting of Bailey as Ian. (On top of all the things the two bicker about in the script, you wonder just what it was that drew these two disparate souls together.)

On the production side of things, one wishes the blackouts between scenes were shorter to help keep the flow of the drama moving along. But otherwise there is good work all around, from the atmospheric Dublin soundscape of sound designer Galen G. Ramsey to the rundown therapist office set by designer Michael W. Moon.

“Shining City” famously ends with a shock that is open to interpretation. Buffalo Theatre Ensemble certainly executes that stage effect well, if not with all the scary impact that it could have had.

“Shining City” is a chilly drama that doesn't offer much uplift. But Buffalo Theatre Ensemble does right by McPherson's script, which dramatically unveils a series of uncomfortable revelations while also suggesting that there are personal and spiritual consequences for the wrongs people inflict on others.

“Shining City”

★ ★ ★

<b>Location:</b> Buffalo Theatre Ensemble at College of DuPage McAninch Arts Center, 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn, (630) 942-4000 or <a href="http://AtTheMac.org">atthemac.org</a>.

<b>Showtimes: </b>8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; runs through Oct. 9

<b>Running time: </b> 90 minutes without intermission

<b>Tickets: </b>$25-$33; $23-$31 students and seniors

<b>Parking: </b>nearby free lot

<b>Rating: </b>For mature audiences; features sexuality and profanity