“St. Nicholas”

Recommended *** The intimate “Black box” space, Owen Theatre, at The Goodman, is playing host to a special engagement’s revival of “St. Nicholas”, written by  Conor McPherson and starring Brendan Coyle. This is a special performance-art, one man show that will not appeal to all audiences. The “monologue” play deals with vampires and what takes place if  bitten by them. Directed by Simon Evans, we are listening to Coyle for close to two hours ( with one intermission) as he tells us his thrilling and chilling story about reaching out to a lovely lady who has drawn his attention . Our “hero” is of all things, a theater critic, which drew a lot of laughs at last night’s “press opening” with a house filled with theater critics/reviewers.

He is from Dublin, so there is a bit of an accent and for some reason, perhaps the intimacy of the space, he is not wearing a microphone. People in the back of the house had some problems in hearing this extraordinary work, which caused many in my area to lose it and fall asleep. I have always felt that every actor needs to project to the back row. If they don’t, they can easily lose them. Once lost, hard to regain as the story is difficult to follow.

This critic falls in love ( or perhaps “lust”) with a young actress. In order to pursue his desires, he makes a deal with some modern- day vampires ( sort of like a deal with the devil). The bargain , however, has no “escape clause”. In the first act, we learn about this and in the second act is a look at what the results of those desires led to and an examination of the results. Coyle is a dynamic performer who holds our attention, but I was a bit concerned about his right arm/hand. He kept putting it in his pocket and was wearing an overcoat, making this a bit distracting. If an actor draws attention to a part of the body, the audience is more than likely going to stare and watch this. I found it distracting and was concerned . In a one person show, with very dim lighting, this is very conducive to losing one’s audience.

“St. Nicholas” is only here thru the 27th with performances as follows:

Tuesday  7:30 p.m

Wednesday  7:30 p.m.

Thursdays  2 and 7:30 p.m.

Friday  8 p.m.

Saturday  2 and 8 p.m.

Sunday  2 p.m.

Tickets range from $31-$85 and can be purchased by calling 312-443-3800 , at the box office or online at www.GoodmanTheatre.org/StNicholas

ACCESSIBILITY

ASL  January 25th   8 p.m.

Touch Tour January 26th at 12:30 p.m. and the 2 p.m. performance will be audio described

Open Caption  January 27th at 2 p.m.

GoodmanTheatre.org/Access

The Goodman Theatre is located at 190 N. Dearborn Street

To see what others are saying, visit www.theatreinchicago.com, go to Review Round-Up and click at “St. Nicholas”