ST. NICHOLAS at Midnight Theater Review

– By Cate Marquis –

Joe Hanrahan delivers a riveting performance in “St. Nicholas,” playwright Conor McPherson’s dark comedy about a jaded Irish theater critic who follows a beautiful young actress to London and falls in with a group of vampires. The one-man play is having a limited run at the Greenfinch Theater and Dive Bar, from Oct. 2-5, with performances Oct. 2-4 at 7:30pm and Oct. 5 at 2pm.

“St. Nicholas” seems a prefect choice for the Halloween season for Midnight Theater, a darkly comic play about a jaded, mean-spirited theater critic who meets up with vampires. The Greenfinch, at 2525 S. Jefferson, St. Louis. MO, is the space formerly occupied by the Way Out Club, a quirk artist-run bar and performance space known for its found-object art, particularly with recycled old TVs. The bar section looks much the same but the second room as been more fully converted into a black box style theater as the Greenfinch. Seating on three sides, with an eclectic mix of chairs and couches on three risers.

Bradley Rohlf directs and the action takes place on a bare stage, apart from a single chair added in the second act. There in a 15 minute intermission.

In this cozy space, Joe Hanrahan strode onto that bare stage, sporting a soft Irish accent, as the cynical Irish critic. He begins to regal the audience with a bitingly funny, often snarky and occasionally tad ribald monologue, as he tells us who this fellow was and is, and how he reached his jaded peak.

Hanrahan is certainly a gifted actor, and quickly had the audience spellbound, as he described, with dry, self deprecating humor, how this once sincere journalist fell into theatrical reviewing nearly by accident but soon became addicted to the power he could wield as a critic, while falling into a hack as a writer.

The first act features the excellent Hanrahan painting his gripping portrait of a man both drunk on his power as the maker, or more often, breaker of theatrical productions and artists’ dreams, and just plain drunk. Spinning tales of cruelty and deceit while hanging out in bars to be lauded by fans and fawned over by fear-filled theater actors and directors, he also detailed a family life gone stale. Towards the end of the act, Hanrahan’s jaded critic describes a production of “Salome,” where he falls, suddenly and completely, for the beautiful young actress in that role, and the cruel trick he plays, and then regrets. The act ends with the audience tense as the actor teases about what happens next, when he encounters vampires.

The second act opens as Hanrahan’s theater critic tells of how he, irrationally, follows the production he had treated so badly, and that beautiful young actress playing Salome, to London, where the show is booked for a brief run. He also reminds us about those vampires looming in the wings. Well, not the wings exactly, but lurking in a park. A park where the critic finds himself, filled to the brim with liquor after he stopped at bar after bar, trying to work up the courage to speak to the beautiful young actress, as evening falls. He tells of encountering a man, who introduces himself as William. William is somehow such a soothing presence that the critic can’t quite leave his side.

The critic’s crowing confidence is taken down a notch in the second act, as, befuddled, he accompanies William back to his vampires’ lair, which is a decaying castle but a house in the suburbs where he dwells with other vampires and learns some facts and fictions about vampires. But rather than killing the critic, William offers a pact. The critic will go into the city, hang out at bars and invite young victims back to “his place” with the promise of a party, where the vampires are waiting. Soothingly, William tells him the victims won’t be killed, just a little drained before they are released unharmed in the morning. The critic has his doubts about this but is too far under William’s charming spell. Offered a comfortable room, filled with books he likes, unlimited funds and liquor, it is hard to say no.

The first act is such a juggernaut, with the character, with biting wit, describing his own descent into cynicism and his addiction to power, that the vampires themselves seem a bit, well, pale, by comparison. Still, Hanrahan continues to bring his considerable talent to bear on the material, although the play itself seems to lose some steam as the second act unfolds. The humor is sly and more subtle, with William making the vampires seem a mere inconvenience to their victims, who are not killed and released only a little groggy. However, the fright factor comes up a bit when the critic describes the far-more frightening female vampires, who are sexy, shadowy and ravenous figures. We expect something awful to happen and a fiery end, but instead the plays ends with a puzzling fizzle. What should have been a harrowing escape has all the excitement of stumbling out of a bar.

To have what came on so strong in that firecracker of a first act, come to such an unsatisfying denouement in the second act is disappointing, especially given Hanrahan’s fine performance. Hanrahan does his best to breath life into it in the listless end of the second act, but it just doesn’t give him the material that the first act did. Still, the play is well worth seeing, for that excellent performance and the first act.

Midnight Theater’s “St. Nicholas” is on stage at the Greenfinch Theater for performances on October 2-4, 2025 at 7:30pm and Oct 5, 2025 at 2pm.

© Cate Marquis