Beck Center’s yarn, ‘Shining City,’ inspires a yawn Bob Abelman Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal Member, International Association of Theatre Critics 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. 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. The person telling the story does so with extended monologues that tend to be more confessional than theatrical. And there is always a quirky, other-worldly element that bites at the heels of the play’s otherwise stark and quite dramatic realism. "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. And it is very much a ghost story. For more of this article, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/.