Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – This spring at Irish Rep: Camouflaging the darkness within in David Ireland’s ULSTER AMERICAN and Mark O’Rowe’s THE APPROACH

• By drediman
• May 12, 2026
• No Comments

This spring down in Chelsea at the Irish Repertory Theatre, I caught a pair of productions that managed to camouflage the dark underbelly of our human nature — until they didn’t. As always, read on for my thoughts on these two stealthy one act plays.

ULSTER AMERICAN
Irish Repertory Theatre
Francis J. Greenburger Mainstage

First up on Irish Rep’s mainstage, you’ll find Matthew Broderick headlining Ulster American (RECOMMENDED), David Ireland’s sharp-tongued dark comedy about an Academy Award-winning Hollywood film star — played by Broderick — who teams up with a renowned English director and an Northern Irish playwright to mount a new play in London, presumably in the West End. What starts off as an amusing comedy of manners about artists behaving badly — particularly as it relates to unmitigated egos and artistic/political pretenses — eventually devolves into something much more brutal and irreconcilable. Suffice to say, some rather nasty truths about the characters’ hypocritical nature are uncovered as their three-way psychological power grab escalates to a feverish pitch. Although I found the gory tonal transition beyond these uncomfortable truth-sayings to be too abruptly jarring and more than a tad unconvincing as the play approaches its explosive conclusion (no spoilers here!), I found most of the preceding satiric aspects of the play to be expertly telegraphed by director and Irish Rep co-founder Ciarán O’Reilly, who with his cast of three, consistently hit the mark from a comedic and observational perspective. And although Broderick’s merits as an actor no doubt continues to be divisive, at least his role here seems tailored to his celebrity status and distracted and clueless gee-whiz acting style. Thankfully, as the playwright and the director, respectively, Geraldine Hughes and Max Baker bring more than enough bite and personality to their carefully-shaped portrayals to compensate for Broderick’s predictably single-note turn.

THE APPROACH
Irish Repertory Theatre
W. Scott McLucas Studio Theatre

Then there’s Irish Rep’s revival of Mark O’Rowe’s The Approach (RECOMMENDED), another three character play — this one sensitivity helmed by director Conor Bagley and presented in the theater company’s cozy basement studio theater space. Beyond the unassuming one-on-one interactions between three friends that make up the play, the piece is more importantly a meditation on the delicate notion of identity and the often superficial nature of human connection. Indeed, read between the lines, and you’ll find that the play’s three women spend much of the play trying to use conversation to rise from life’s cliches and banalities, thereby exposing the realities we create for ourselves within the ultimately lonesome void that is human existence. The Approach is heavily informed by Harold Pinter, whose DNA — especially that of Betrayal — is evidently infused in the work. Like that Pinter classic, structure and simmering subtext play crucial roles in conveying its underlying existential observations. The elegant “looping” flow of Mr. O’Rowe’s quartet of subtly chilly scenes (structurally, the compact play is comprised of three-and-a-half relay race style catch-up meet-ups between a trio of once-close women over the course of a number of years) suggests the constantly shifting, slippery nature of memory and truth — which are also acutely explored in plays like Betrayal. The production’s three astute actresses — Carmen M. Herlihy, Kate MacCluggage, and Danielle Ryan — tantalizingly walk the line between nonchalant chatter and flashing glimmers into their inner lives with scalpel-like precision (particularly affecting is Herlihy in a slyly heartbreaking performance). Thankfully, they’ve expertly calibrated their performances to accommodate the intimate environs of Irish Rep’s tiny studio theater, where every subtle behavioral inflection invites you to lean in and reflect on their deeper nuances.