Premiering in its metropolitan debut at Irish Repertory Theatre on Sunday, The Honey Trap is a fictional drama grounded in sorrowful Irish history. Set mostly in modern-day Belfast, The Honey Trap begins as a series of oral history interviews recalling the Troubles. They are illuminated by flashbacks to 1979. An unexpected second act mixes a whodunit with a revenge thriller plus a wistful smidge of later Boomer romance. Belfast playwright Leo McGann’s new drama amalgamates an odd blend of genres; but as supported by very good acting and staging, Irish Rep’s premiere delivers an undeniably entertaining two hours.
Beyond the heat of a slow-burning performance by Michael Hayden smoldering at the story’s core and the excellence of director Matt Torney’s production, the author’s good dialogue and smart deployment of duality smooth out a somewhat incredulous yarn: Per the play’s title, a sweetly tempting trap is set in two situations decades apart. Contrasting cat-and-mouse exchanges between the central figure and two dissimilar women provides another dual (or perhaps duel) motif that heightens the drama.
The fellow in question is Dave (Hayden), a former British soldier who is being interviewed today in an oral history project regarding terrible times in 1979 Belfast by Emily (Molly Ranson), an American in her backpacking twenties. Even as Emily probes and Dave gingerly responds, extended flashbacks will reveal how the younger Dave (Daniel Marconi) and his best army buddy Bobby (Harrison Tipping) meet two honeys (Doireann Mac Mahon and Annabelle Zasowski) in a pub that ends in a fatal IRA encounter. Still nursing guilt and anger over Bobby’s murder some 40 years on, Dave discovers the whereabouts of one of those sweeties (Samantha Mathis) and then looks her up.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
Observing the second act, one can’t help but think what a potential film this play could be for Daniel Craig and Meryl Streep or some such screen pairing. But that’s merely a fleeting thought amid the immediate pleasure of watching the craggy Hayden and wry Mathis, both fine actors, banter away as strangers who try to size each other up even as their younger selves meet way back when.
The poignant 1979 scenes are burnished by the fond camaraderie between young Dave and ill-fated Bobby. Recently seen as the engaging hero of Mint Theater Company’s 1900s comedy Garside’s Career, Marconi sharpens his high-spirited Dave with a mischievous edge glimpsed intermittently in Hayden’s melancholy iteration. A boyish Tipping sweetly presents Bobby as a nice sacrificial lamb for the narrative. Ranson cheerily depicts an earnest American interviewer who’s perhaps not as smart as she thinks.
Uncredited in the program are several actors who furnish the voices for various unseen Dubliners heard talking about their experiences during the Troubles. A complex sound design created by James Garver provides a “taped” quality for the recorded interviews, the noise of street combat as needed and even some subtle pulsing effects to juice up crucial encounters. Scenic designer Charlie Corcoran and lighting designer Michael Gottlieb easily shift decades and locations within a two-doorway room of neutral panels. With bits of furniture and atmospheric lighting, the unassuming space becomes a pub, coffee shop, restaurant or hotel bedroom. Along with necessary military gear, costume designer Sarita Fellows dresses the characters in casual clothes appearing true to time.
Thanks in part to its striking production by Matt Torney, who makes an impressive directing debut at Irish Rep, The Honey Trap offers some highly engrossing theater. Leo McGann’s drama might be more fully expressed as a screenplay, but for now hot acting and potent atmosphere help to make it quite a satisfying show.
