David Ireland’s Ulster American, now playing at the Irish Rep, is a well-crafted skewering of straight, white, male creative types of a certain age who are desperate to maintain their relevancy — and assert their progressive bona fides — at a time when the culture seems to want them to cede the spotlight a bit. The show unfolds in the comfy London home of a theater director, Leigh (Max Baker), who’s about to begin rehearsals of a new play about a hyper-violent man in the midst of The Troubles.

The show’s star is an Oscar-winning actor, Jay (Matthew Broderick), who paints himself a feminist and liberal do-gooder while revealing increasingly unhinged opinions about women and gay rights and whether Ice Cube reputation would have been boosted if he’d only been murdered in the ’90s like Tupac and Biggie Smalls. (“It says something about America that we prefer our iconic Black artists to meet unnecessary, preferably violent, deaths,” he says.)

Eventually, the Belfast-based playwright Ruth (Geraldine Hughes) joins them — and Ireland dials up the triangulated tension as each stakes out positions that rankle one or both of their companions — whether it’s Jay’s ill-conceived idea to wear an eyepatch in the show or Ruth’s insistence that she’s British and not Irish despite her accent and hometown. Ireland carefully seeds his conflicts, dropping details (and even props) that will explode during the show’s unexpectedly bloody climax.

But there’s a herky-jerky quality to the production, starting with director Ciarán O’Reilly’s uneven pacing and odd blocking. (After an opening scene with Broderick and Baker mostly seated, he has Hughes and Baker merry-go-round Charlie Corcoran’s cozy set in a way that makes utterly no sense for characters quietly discussing Jay’s out-there behavior while the actor’s out of the room.) The other problem is Broderick. While he nails the solipsism of a man who’s lived in pampered privilege so long that he’s oblivious to the impression he actually gives, the actor continues his recent run of highly recessive performances capped by unorthodoxly mannered line readings.

Many of the show’s targets are as broad as the Giant’s Causeway. It’s not exactly a surprise to learn that Hollywood stars are shallow or that British intellectuals might mistake James Baldwin for Alec’s younger brother (“Was he the one in Sliver?”). But there are laughs to be found in Ulster American, most of them mined from Jay’s outrageousness and the others’ self-compromising attempts to appease this muckety muck from across the Atlantic. ★★★☆☆

ULSTER AMERICAN
Irish Repertory Theatre, Off Broadway
Running time: 85 minutes (with no intermission)
Tickets on sale through May 10 for $55 to $125