SWEET LIES, STICKY MEMORIES, BITTER GUILT;
THE HONEY TRAP STINGS AT IRISH REP

In Northern Ireland, The Troubles only ended some 25-30 years ago, though their tensions and legacies reach far deeper into time. Today, Leo McGann‘s play The Honey Trap, now at the Irish Repertory Theatre, reminds us that it was never a tidy us-versus-them. The Troubles were a twisted three-way political clash: Catholic republicans pushing for a united Ireland; Protestant loyalists clinging to the British Crown; and the security forces (British Army, RUC, UDR, etc.) meant to keep order but often just adding fuel to the fire.

Michael Hayden leads the cast as Dave, a former British soldier returning to Northern Ireland. Lisburn, a city 8 miles southwest of Belfast city centre, is the site of a long-buried trauma that altered his life, and he is about to do an interview about it for an oral history project run by an American student, Emily (Molly Ranson). Hayden smoothly walks the fine line between confession and concealment, restraint and regret, with an earnest, and quite disturbing, boomer attitude. His story begins with the easy rhythm of a pub tale, with two British soldiers in their twenties getting wasted, and ends in something far more sobering. Matt Torney directs it with tension, carefully managing Dave’s memories of 1979 Belfast and present-day reflections, never letting the audience grow too comfortable.

In the dim light of the pub, a younger Dave (Daniel Marconi), as crude and unlikeable as the older version, is hanging out with his mate Bobby (Harrison Tipping), a shy and inexperienced grunt. Dave treats him with a kind of rough fondness, gently bullying him, pushing him to do things that make him uncomfortable. They are both married, frustrated by a horrible “security” job they barely understand, in need of distractions. Doireann MacMahon and Annabelle Zasowski play Kirsty and Lisa, two very cheeky Irish girls standing not too far from them, sexy and with a tongue like the tip of a scalpel. The four start talking and the conversation is truly hilarious.

An unforeseen event shatters everything, leaving these four young people forever changed. Decades later, Dave still lives inside that guilt and rage, haunted by the words he couldn’t say to Bobby, the choices he forced on him, and the interview adds fuel to the fire. He finally finds Lisa, whose real name is Sonia, played by a Samantha Mathis in full form. Her performance lays bare Sonia’s psychological wound, and her pain is just as raw as Dave’s. Despite the ideological canyon between them, she is living with the same demons. The entire ensemble delivers, there is not a weak link among them.

Charlie Corcoran‘s set design captures the ghost of a Belfast pub; Sarita Fellows‘s costumes help stitch together the eras; Michael Gottlieb‘s lighting shifts from pub light to cold isolation to mirror the emotional turns of the script; and James Garver‘s sound design slickly underscores the play’s moments of fun and tension. But in the second half the script does a sharp swerve, trading its meditation on guilt and complicity for something more pulpy, more melodramatic. Dave’s arc turns at times brutal, almost caricatured, and the subtleties get buffeted by excess. Maybe his character needs a little restraint, more mental than physical rage to preserve the complexity that makes his choices feel real.

Yet The Honey Trap refuses moral tidy packages, and it is absolutely worth seeing. It asks uncomfortable questions about what we choose to remember, and what we bury just to go on living. Even now, young people rush into battles for the right ideals, only to become entangled in something awful, inhuman. Leo McGann is absolutely right and timely in reminding us that however noble the start, actions that hurt others carve hidden wounds that do not heal. Bravo.

photos by Carol Rosegg

The Honey Trap
Irish Repertory Theatre
Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage, 132 West 22nd St
2 hours, 20 minutes with one intermission
ends on November 9, 2025 EXTENDED to November 23, 2025
for tickets ($60-$125), call 212.727.2737 or visit Irish Rep