Doireann MacMahon, Annabelle Zasowski, Daniel Marconi, Michael Hayden and Harrison Tipping
Photo: Carol Rosegg
Play: The Honey Trap
Writer: Leo McCann
Director: Matt Torney
Cast: Michael Hayden, Doireann Mac Mahon, Daniel Marconi, Samantha Mathis. Molly Ranson, Harrison Tipping, Annabelle Zasowski
When: September 17 – November 23, 2025
Where: Irish Repertory Theatre
132 West 22nd Street
New York, NY 10011
Review by Brad Balfour, Arts Editor
I didn’t know what to expect from “The Honey Trap,” produced by the Irish Repertory Theatre this fall. Initially set during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, the play is staged in Belfast, 1979. Two off-duty British soldiers, stationed there during the height of the Troubles, believe they’ve hit it off with two local women at a unionist pub on the city’s outskirts. The guys think they’re slick. The girls think they’re both naïve –– even sort of innocent –– but a touch arrogant as well.
What begins as a night of flirtation and playful sparring soon turns dark. Without giving away anything, the first half ends with the Troubles in full focus. While most narratives about Northern Ireland deal with the conflict between the Catholic and Protestant communities — those who identify with Britain or the Irish Republic to the south — this drama puts the spotlight on the young British soldiers caught in between. They were thrown into a maelstrom thoroughly unprepared — and often demonized.
The play has been described as a thriller, but what exactly makes a thriller? Yes, there’s a mystery here. But it’s more focused on the characters with the plot/story bolstering the characters’ interactions rather than just building the suspense through the yet unrevealed. Being able to connect emotionally to the characters helps a lot in appreciating the play. Otherwise, you wouldn’t really care about the plot/story that much.
Rooted in actual history and real events that occurred during the Troubles, it forces the audience to see beyond the events. Yet the play has its problems since not many of the characters here are all that sympathetic. Sometimes they seem really feckless.
Once the first half is over, the narrative pivots and shifts to the present day. Through the device of an oral history of Troubles being developed, the surviving soldier learns of the identity of the woman he met years ago and they reconnect — though somewhat awkwardly.
Now, decades later, long-buried memories resurface, drawing him back to Belfast in search of answers and revenge. There’s still tragedy in the background — which I won’t reveal here — that’s still achingly in mind. And is genuine tragedy ever really over? It can physically end, but does It ever leave the mind? Knowing that a betrayal has occurred eats away at you. It’s then a double betrayal since it’s not really resolved in current times.
So again, without revealing plot points, it’s the lingering post-traumatic impact of the Troubles which prompts the older Dave (Michael Hayden) to seek out the surviving older woman (Samantha Mathis) when he comes to Belfast.
Once they encounter each other, the story swirls around and comes to its taut and tumultuous conclusion. The story then becomes at once unexpected, with an ending but not a resolution. Though the play began somewhat tentatively, it ends with the thriller elements more in the foreground.
In doing so, the Belfast-based playwright McCann offers a story which looks at the events of the Troubles through bloodshot eyes, once that see an ending but not a conclusion. Though the physical violence may be over, the repercussions from many years of conflict still fester.