Whenever an Irish play comes to mind – any Irish play – there’s probably a good chance your thoughts turn to dark stories populated by impoverished, heavily accented country folk spending lots of time inebriated; and maybe it’ll be sprinkled with some violence and a Banshee or two. But I bet you’d never think of a comedy. Well that’s all about to change now with Ciara Elizabeth Smyth’s delightfully hilarious Irishtown receiving its world premiere at the Irish Rep.
The play is set in the environs of a Dublin theater where five members of the Irishtown Players are rehearsing a new work by resident playwright Aisling, entitled “Who Are We If We Are Not Ourselves At All.” It’s the theater company’s big break as they’ve been invited by an American producer to perform for the very first time in New York City. It begins as the three actors sit for the first read with Aisling (Brenda Meaney) and director Poppy (Angela Reed) in attendance.
There’s a lot of tension in the air as it becomes all too clear the actors aren’t exactly sold on the script. They worry that the play, a sexual assault court drama set in England is not Irish enough because they believe the “Yanks love Irish accents” and would prefer something more typically Irish…you know, like The Beauty Queen of Leenane or Dancing at Lughnasa or The Happy Leper of Larne. That last one, written by Aisling, earned her the commission that’s taking them all to New York.
Irishtown starts slow but the production builds to a riotous climax as the actors trip all over themselves trying to be diplomatic while insisting the play won’t work in America. Things finally come to a head when Aisling, sensing a mutiny, abandons the whole project one week before leaving for New York and the troupe decides to devise an Irish play of their own. Smyth has a blast portraying these self absorbed egomaniacs who honestly believe they can come up with something better in a week. And so they start throwing out ideas for their improvised play. It needs to have “incest”, “alcoholism”, “pigs”, “potatoes”, “fairies”, etc. It’s what they think Americans want in an Irish drama. And above all it has to be sad and depressing. As one of them says: “I’ve just never been in an Irish play with a happy ending.”
That character is the veteran of the troupe – Constance, a legend in her own mind, hysterically played by Kate Burton as an actress who’s always on stage. In self-aggrandizing fashion she tells the others they’re “playing with the big boys now” though of course she’s never played with the big boys herself.
It’s their moment…their quest for the holy grail of theater – the Tony Award! It’s waiting for them just across the pond. All they have to do is come up with a great play in seven days to get there.
Saoirse-Monica Jackson, known for her starring role in the British TV series Derry Girls displays fine stage chops as the ingenue Siofra. When we first meet her, she’s in a relationship with Aisling but after discovering that their director, Poppy is a Royal Shakespeare alum AND a friend of Martin Scorsese, she quickly trades up and switches partners.
And then there’s the one guy in the troupe, Quin (Kevin Oliver Lynch) who’s the most skeptical about Aisling’s play. With his dry delivery and bizarre attempts at Irish dialects which Quin clearly can’t do, it’s a laugh out loud performance.
At its most chaotic, Irishtown brings to mind Noises Off, that classic farce about staging a play within a play in the British hinterland. Comedy, as they say, is hard; and it takes tremendous discipline and timing to pull it off. Under the tight direction of Nicola Murphy Dubey the company mostly meets the challenge though the humor occasionally seems forced. Still it’s quite a trip watching talented actors frantically portraying desperate actors acting badly.
They get a great assist from the technical team working their magic on that tiny Irish Rep stage. Colm McNally’s scenic and lighting designs somehow create the illusion of a very ample playing space. And cheers to Orla Long who designed the costumes and Nicole Rozanski for her props, all of which mightily amplified the silliness on stage.
There is clearly method to all the seeming madness. Smyth is making a bigger point with this play, sending up the stereotypes that have entrenched Irish culture for so long. She writes in the program that the show was “inspired by putrid green rage” recognizing that her accent becomes “doubly Dublin” every time she sets foot on American soil. Irishtown is her bold and very original attempt at exposing the cliched assumptions of her homeland and forcing us to see that can’t be all there is to being Irish.
Besides the standard bleak fare that defines so much of Ireland’s dramatic canon, there’s another irrefutable truth: almost all the great Irish plays are written by men. And so it is worth trumpeting that it takes a woman to break the mold and she’s gifting us with some much needed laughter in the process.
Irishtown opened April 13, 2025, at the Irish Repertory Theatre and runs through May 25. Tickets and information: irishrep.org
