Saturday 15 October 2011

Irish Ghosts on Stage



The Irish playwright Conor McPherson is, I suspect, unique in having written several ghost stories for the stage that have been taken seriously as 'proper' modern theatre. I can recommend Shining City, The Weir, and The Seafarer (I was privileged to see Jim Norton star in the latter). His latest, The Veil, is also ghostly in content, but I've yet to have the opportunity to see it. In the non-supernatural vein I can also recommend Port Authority, a moving triple-stranded tale of Dublin life. Shining City is a particularly interesting example of the sub-genre that goes 'psychiatrist talks to man who claims to see ghost'. The ending is extremely memorable.

Here's another video, which gives some flavour of the playwright's work. You can probably guess who this gentleman is.

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