Matthew Broderick hasn’t had an easy time of it with theater critics since his spectacular turn in “The Producers” way back in 2001. The reviews were mixed, at best, for his performance in the 2005 revival of “The Odd Couple,” featuring “Producers” co-star Nathan Lane, and downright bad for his performance in the 2022 revival of “Plaza Suite,” featuring wife Sarah Jessica Parker.
Whether he’s playing Leo Bloom ages ago on Broadway or Tartuffe earlier this theater season Off Broadway, Broderick invariably brings the character around to his genial, slightly bemused beta-male persona.
He does it yet again with his latest stage effort. The difference is, Broderick does it in top form with the American premiere of David Ireland’s comedy “Ulster American,” which opened Sunday at the Irish Repertory Theatre.
It helps that there’s a Grand Canyon gulf between Broderick’s nice-guy personality and the narcissistic foul-mouth movie star who harbors a bizarre rape fantasy regarding a dead British icon.
It also helps that Ireland’s “Ulster American” is one of this season’s best new plays and nearly as funny as Talene Monahon’s “Meet the Cartozians” and Lauren Yee’s “Mother Russia.”
Ireland’s play stands out from those two outrageous genre-bending comedies by being aggressively old-fashioned, if not downright ancient. Ireland strictly obeys the Greek unities of action, time and place. Its 90 minutes is exactly the time it takes for a theater director (Max Baker) to introduce a playwright (Geraldine Hughes) to the star (Matthew Broderick) of her new play about the Troubles in Northern Ireland and watch the whole theater project fall apart.
The meeting misfires from the get-go and the American actor’s terrible Belfast accent is the least of the problems. This nitwit of a movie star has completely misinterpreted the play, and the director adds to the misunderstanding by rejecting the playwright’s British identity despite her birth in Northern Ireland.
Even when Broderick’s movie star gets boiling mad or uses the C-word to describe the playwright or spouts rape fantasies, he gives the benign impression that someone has just taken a vacuum to his brain.
Baker and Hughes more than hold their own in this showdown of egos. Ciarán O’Reilly’s sharp direction keeps us guessing: Just how far will these two Brits go in not only putting up with each other’s prejudices – Brexit raises its thorny head — but securing the needed services of a movie star who thinks his Oscar, which he carries around with him, means something in Old Blighty?
The Irish Rep had the audacity to open “Ulster American” on Oscar night, which isn’t the only insult to the Academy. The Oscar statue on stage is used in most unusual ways.
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