The Honey Trap

"The Honey Trap"
a powerful take on guilt, regret, and revenge

“The Honey Trap” by Leo McGann, directed by Matt Torney
Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 W. 22 Street, NYC.
Sept. 17 – Nov. 9, 2025. Schedule:
Wed. – Sat. @ 7 PM; Sat. @ 2 PM; Sun. @ 3 PM. $60-125.
For tickets, call 212-727-2737, email boxoffice@irishrep.org, or visit the box office.
Reviewed by Glenda Frank.

(L-R) Doireann Mac Mahon, Michael Hayden, Harrison Tipping, and Annabelle Zasowski. Ohoto by Carol Rosegg.

History files our wars away in tidy folders with dates and locations. But wars ferment well before their starting dates and often they don’t end with peace agreements, especially for those who lived on the front lines. It’s not just the trauma or the wounds, but that people don’t want to let go. They believe that moving on is a failure of loyalty and love.

“The Honey Trap,” Leo McGann’s new play about The Troubles in Northern Ireland, is a powerful take on guilt, regret, and revenge. It’s set in the present with flashbacks to 1979, when young soldiers were sent to Belfast to maintain British rule. Bobby (Harrison Tipping) is a gawky, married 21 year old. Dave (Daniel Marconi as the young British soldier), a few years older than Bobby, takes him under his wing, teaches him how to lean against a wall that is probably wired to explode on contact, and how to pick up women in a pub. They were planning on some stress-free drinking, but seeing two attractive women decide on a night of quick love. Dave’s phone call home changes his mood. He learns his wife is pregnant and their cat has died. He returns to the barracks, convincing Bobby to stay with the two sharp-tongued women. Bobby never returns to the barracks. The women (Doireann MacMahon, “Dancing at Lughnasa,” and Annabelle Zasowski) are an IRA honey trap.

Daniel Marconi and Harrison Tipping. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

We see the play through Dave’s eyes (Michael Hayden, Tony nomination for “Judgment at Nuremberg”) decades later as he is being interviewed in Belfast by a Boston-based student. She had been focused on the experiences of the IRA. He is her first British soldier. The dialogue is lively and confrontational. Dave makes the past come alive, and Emily (Molly Ranson), the interviewer, dodges, challenges and responds to his many questions. It’s hard to know where the play is going, but the playwright uses the suspense to draw the audience in. In a high octane, nuanced performance, Hayden’s Dave looks at once very deliberate and ready to explode. Dave has never forgotten Bobby, and he wants revenge.

The second act opens in Sonia’s (Samantha Mathis, “The Man Who Had All the Luck”) café, present day. Dave ransacked Emily’s room to find the information he needed about the women who lured Bobby. He sweet talks her, and they have a night of passion before he unfurls his plan. He, too, has becomes a honey trap.

Annabelle Zasowski, Doireann Mac Mahon, Harrison Tipping, and Daniel Marconi. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

The production directed by Matt Torney, originally from Belfast, is uneven. Some performances are more accomplished than others, but the plays offers powerful insights into the forgotten stories of war and its aftermath. Sonia, who changed her name, is a struggling business woman, mother and grandmother, but the wrong choice long ago, a choice that seemed right at the time, might explode her world. Our views of history change. New generations want new stories and new storytellers so even today the image of Columbus the explorer battles with the image of Columbus the exploiter. And we are all caught in flux.