"Mr. Ireland’s analysis of the ambivalence in Eric’s identity crisis is often inspired. The use in 'Cyprus Avenue' of the sessions with the therapist — who speaks the language of political correctness — as a structural anchor feels like a safe and conventional choice. While the entire ensemble is very good, the play is at its most compelling when you feel you’re stuck inside Eric’s deluded mind...It’s Mr. Rea who puts us smack in the middle of one man’s tenacious, besieged, quivering sense of self."
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“A baffling waste of resources and time, Ireland’s failed black comedy stretches a single bad analogy into a numbing 100 minutes. Rea plays Eric, an Ulster Unionist...with anti-Catholic feeling...Eric spews great gouts of bigotry which is meant to shock us...and into seeing that such foulness is wrong...Racism can be like madness, but it’s not actually useful to pretend it’s the same thing as psychotic derangement—a distinction this repetitive, smug, underthought play blithely ignores.”
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"The easy step from bigotry and ideological entrenchments to outright madness gets a timely depiction...Neither Ireland nor Featherstone want merely to show what madmen do when tethers snap, but rather to suggest what causes the snapping in the first place...The cast is superb...Rea is the star of 'Cypress Avenue,' and chilling in the role, a man so convinced of his rightness that madness seems almost logical."
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"'Cyprus Avenue' is the sort of subversive piece designed to be both horrifying and funny. The play fulfills those aspirations to a degree, but too often at the expense of being alternately alienating and, strangely enough, boring...Still, the production is a must-see if only for the opportunity to watch Stephen Rea deliver a tour-de-force performance that almost, but not quite, compensates for the work's grueling aspects."
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"The sheer shock of the boundaries that Ireland and director Vicky Featherstone are willing to cross onstage coupled with the jolt of self-reflection, make 'Cyprus Avenue' a play that everyone should see, but one I wouldn't wish my worst enemy to sit through twice. It's one of the most unsettling experiences in a theater you're likely to have, but it's also one of the most cohesive articulations of the cultural civil war in which the world finds itself and the unfathomable cliffs we're speeding toward."
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"On the surface, the plot of 'Cyprus Avenue' is just a little too weird to take seriously, and that's one of the strengths of David Ireland's creepy drama, as director Vicky Featherstone seamlessly transitions the piece from cerebral exploration to dark comedy to a sickeningly violent ending...Featherstone uses the substance judiciously and symbolically, never allowing sensationalism to overshadow the horror of what is going on in Eric's mind."
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“A fine actor giving a tour-de-force performance in a play that goes irreparably off the rails...Ireland's play aims for Swiftian satire but settles for being a grim, exploitative cartoon, more interested in rattling the audience's nerves than in making any cogent psychological or political points...’Cyprus Avenue’ is rather like being buttonholed at a party by some loud, obnoxious drunk who won't shut up...One of the dreariest evenings that the Public has presented in a long, long time.”
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"A gut-wrenching presentation that starts out in the world of pitch black humor and rapidly descends into unchecked psychosis...If you can handle the pernicious content, you will surely find Rea's astonishing performance etched into your memory for a long time to come. Mr. Corrigan as Slim is nearly as powerful as Rea in depicting the unraveled mind of the unleashed soldier-of-war...If nothing else 'Cyprus Avenue' makes for a hell of a cautionary tale against unbridled xenophobia."
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