Chicago Tribune
- Highly Recommended
"...Although it features a different cast, the Goodman production is a remounting of last season's throbbing Broadway staging, which happened to be directed by Goodman artistic director Robert Falls. Falls is the perfect director for McPherson's quieter and more introspective writing. Each man simultaneously frees and holds back the other. For the good of the whole."
Chicago Sun Times
- Highly Recommended
"...These guilt-emptying confessions and shifts of consciousness are the essential building blocks of "Shining City," a play whose elegantly simple structure (and similarly elegant set by Santo Loquasto) is supported by writing at once dazzlingly vivid and true, sporadically comic and invariably wise."
Daily Herald
- Recommended
"...Robert Falls, who directed the 2006 Broadway premiere, reprises the New York production with a new cast that includes A-listers Jay Whitaker (in a welcome return to the Chicago stage) and John Judd. Their resonant performances, coupled with Falls' understated direction and McPherson's fluently crafted play, make "Shining City" a must-see show."
SouthtownStar
- Recommended
"...Although this work could reach a higher level of intimacy if the Irish playwright added a little more meat to the bones of the therapist, the surprise ending of this show helps to make "Shining City" a very spirited pleasure."
Chicago Reader
- Highly Recommended
"...In Shining City—now receiving its beautifully acted Chicago premiere under the direction of Robert Falls, who also staged the New York production—McPherson fuses extraordinary skill at shaping language with an aching awareness of the difficulties of communicating. His characters are remarkably real, and the psychological and spiritual journeys they take are readily recognizable; McPherson has clearly invested himself in each of them."
Windy City Times
- Recommended
"...yes, it's all about the acting. In ascending order of importance, the uniformly truthful players are Keith Gallagher as the surprisingly gentle hustler, Nicole Wiesner as the anguished fiancé in the most explosive scene, Jay Whittaker holding focus as the deeply-internalizing Ian and the remarkable John Judd as the patient. Always possessing a sharp edge, Judd has matured into an actor of rich nuance as well. It's a rare pleasure to see an all-Chicago cast under Falls's direction."
Chicago Free Press
- Recommended
"...Shining City,” which Goodman Theatre artistic director Robert Falls directed last season on Broadway and which he now brings to Chicago with a strong local cast, is a puzzling 90 minutes (reputedly, the first play McPherson wrote while sober). Here the usual Big “Cs”—context, causes, connections, consequences and crises, don’t apply. That may well be the point but it’s hardly gripping."
Copley News Service
- Highly Recommended
"...Falls obviously knows the play inside out and under his insightful guidance the scenes flow with an inevitability and undemonstrative realism that perfectly suit the deep spiritual waters that flow beneath the surface action."
Time Out Chicago
- Recommended
"...Falls’s staging, in spite of its stationary quality, utilizes a quartet of mesmeric actors, and Judd and Whittaker offer two of the most resonant performances in recent Goodman memory. It may be another Goodman variation on coping with loss, but its actors perform like they’ve nothing to lose."
ChicagoCritic
- Highly Recommended
"...Shining City is a subtle, layered drama filled with extremely haunting dialogue performed to near perfection by John Judd with excellent work from Nicole Wiesner and Jay Whittaker. Come to the Goodman Theatre to see a fresh voice in Conor McPherson."
Chicago Stage and Screen
- Recommended
"...Connor McPherson is one of Ireland's foremost living storytellers and his "Shining City", directed by Robert Falls (who was hand picked to direct the Broadway version last year) is indeed a shining experience for Chicago area theater patrons. This is a story of people, just regular people, all of whom are searching for love, tenderness and "self". It is a journey that we as an audience share with our characters as they find themselves through changes. Santo Loquasto's set is stunning and very realistic, a walk-up office/studio apartment in Dublin and Christopher Akerlind's lighting along with Obadiah Eaves' sound add just the right touches. Stir in the music (by Neil Young and Gene Clark) and a dynamite cast and you will see just why "Shining City" shines!"
