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face=Georgia>Beck Center’s yarn, ‘Shining City,’ inspires a
yawn</FONT></SPAN></B><B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><SPAN
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face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
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face=Georgia>Bob Abelman</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
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face=Georgia>Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning
Journal</FONT></SPAN></I><SPAN
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face=Georgia>Member, International Association of Theatre
Critics</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
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face="Times New Roman"></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-bidi-font-family: arial"><FONT
face=Georgia>Irish playwright Conor McPherson is a master storyteller whose tall
tales, often told in short form, overflow with brilliant passages and vivid
imagery that are both powerful and poetic.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-bidi-font-family: arial"><FONT
face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-bidi-font-family: arial"><FONT
face=Georgia>Each of his plays – of which there are 15 -- take place over a
short period of time, which generates a strong sense of immediacy and
urgency.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The person telling the
story does so with extended monologues that tend to be more confessional than
theatrical.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And there is always a
quirky, other-worldly element that bites at the heels of the play’s otherwise
stark and quite dramatic realism.</FONT></SPAN></P>
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style="FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-bidi-font-family: arial"><FONT
face=Georgia></FONT></SPAN> </P>
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style='FONT-FAMILY: ; COLOR: ; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"'><FONT
color=#333333 face=Georgia>"Shining City," first produced in 2004 and currently
on stage at the Beck Center for the Arts’ intimate Studio Theater, is all of
these things.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And it is very much a
ghost story.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
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face=Georgia><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><SPAN
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more of this article, go to </SPAN></I><I
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color=#0563c1>www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/</FONT></SPAN></I><I
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