Shine?

Tonight Barbara, David and I saw Shining City by Conor McPherson at Barrington Stage 2.

It is a puzzling play, at least to me. There are two protagonists. One is a former priest who is now a psychologist who has split with his girlfriend who has borne his child.

The other is a middle aged business man who has lost his wife in an accident and sees her ghost in their home. It turns out that he had an aborted affair with a woman shortly before the accident and blames himself for her death. He comes to the psychologist for help.

Mark H. Dold

Mark H. Dold is the psychologist and Wilbur Edwin Henry is the business man.

                    Wilbur Edwin Henry

Deanna Gibson is the girlfriend who shows up for an emotional scene with the psychologist in which he tells her he can't live with her.

Patrick Ball is a young man the psychologist brings home for sex in a later scene. They have a very awkward time trying to get it on.

In the end the businessman is doing much better and brings the gift of a lamp to thank the psychologist. The psychologist decides to go back to his girlfriend and their baby.

As the businessman, Wilbur Edwin Henry really steals the show in several emotional scenes. They are practically monologues.

Mark H. Dold, whom I have seen before, was good as the very mixed-up shrink. In the scenes with Mr. Henry, he basically just listens.

I feel part of the reason that I have doubts about the play is that I feel the part of the psychologist could have been written better. The scene with the young man seemed gratuitous. Possible it was to show the sexual confusion of the shrink. The title of the play is based on the quotation from the Bible about not hiding one's light under a bushel. I really did not see the connection with the action of the play.

Barbara and David read great significance in the gift of the lamp at the end. Light under a bushel and so on.

At the very end, as the businessman bids farewell to the shrink, as the door is closed, a very bloody image of a woman is there behind the door. Apparently the shrink has inherited the dead wife.

Other than that....

Breaking which code?

Until we saw Breaking the Code at Barrington Stage last night, I assumed the play was about Alan Turing, the mathematical genius who broke the "Enigma Code" of the Nazis in World War II.

Which it was.

But it was also much more about the fact of his homosexuality, which until fairly recently was considered a felony in Great Britain. And it was that, and the fact that he was convicted of "gross mis-conduct', plus his chemical castration as a result, that led to his suicide at the age of 42.

Growing up gay in those days, on either side of the Atlantic, was not a picnic. Having been involved as a plaintiff in the first lawsuit against DOMA, I have some knowledge of this fact.

Mark H. Dold gave a tour de force  performance as Turing in last night's performance. He was on stage for most of the time often reciting difficult mathematical formulas, which must have been hard to memorize, if nothing else.

The play itself is a strange, loose-limbed arrangement of scenes from his life and his involvement with others, sexually and professionally. Considering the harsh laws in Britain concerning homosexuality in those days, it is no wonder that between having mathematical theorems constantly rushing through his head, while feeling guilt at his very sexual being, he finally took his own life.

The rest of the cast included Mike Donovan as Christopher Morcom/Nikos, Kyle Fabel as Mick Ross, Jefferson Farber as Ron Miller, Deborah Hedwall as Sarah Turing (his mother), Philip Kerr as Dillwyn Knox, Annie Meisels as Pat Green, and John Leonard Thompson as John Smith. They were all excellent. The play was directed by Joe Calarco.

I got a little tired of various people pounding on the table (practically the only bit of scenery) to make a point. After a while this became annoying. But otherwise the action was good.

To me, the most poignant scene came toward the end of the play, when Turing, in bed with a beautiful young man in Greece, who spoke no English, tries to explain how he broke the "Enigma Code'. This pathetic moment accurately depicts the trauma between mathematics and sex that dominated his short life.