Kevin Oliver Lynch once aspired to be a doctor.
Then he figured out that what he really wanted was to play one on TV – and especially in something like “Grey’s Anatomy.”
These days, he considers it his considerable good fortune to share the stage at the Irish Repertory Theatre with Kate Burton, who starred in that show.
“She was a big icon in our house,” said Lynch, who grew up in Ballinteer in Dublin.
“She just made it an incredible rehearsal room,” he said, referring to “Irishtown,” written by Ciara Elizabeth Smyth and directed by Nicola Murphy Dubey, and which also stars Saoirse-Monica Jackson, who found fame as the lead actor in “Derry Girls.”
It asks a serious question: what is it that makes an Irish play?
Lynch added, however, “We have a contract with the audience to make them laugh and that’s what we intend to do. Especially now when everything in the world can be so harsh and so tough.”
Kate Burton.
He has lived for eight years in New York, where he’s been involved in an “authentic acting climb.” It hasn’t helped that half of the time was taken up with Covid and the screenwriters’ strike.
But Lynch acknowledged his privileges: one being his birth in the U.S. And he happily played up the more mundane perks he’s gotten at the outset of a screen career.
“I walked to my first job,” he said, referring to the fact that the set of “FBI” was in north Brooklyn, close to his home.
“I was a pilot,” he said of his role in the episode, “which is funny because I’ve astigmatism, so I couldn’t be one [in real life].”
Lynch said of the set, “It’s a huge operation. There are people everywhere. So many rooms where things are being built and finessed. They built a full airplane inside of a building where we shot my scenes. The efficiency is like none other.
“They’re amazing sets to go onto, and just so inspiring,” he said.
He also got a role in a show from another franchise associated with producer Dick Wolf, “Law & Order: Organized Crime.” He hopes to do more.
“It’s like a badge of honor as a New York actor,” Lynch said of appearing in an episode of any “Law & Order” show.
He traveled home to Ireland – where his mother and two of his sisters live; the third is in Australia – to shoot scenes for another TV role. He plays a Garda officer in the 12th and final episode of the critically acclaimed HBO, and Netflix-streamed, show “The Tourist,” starring Jamie Dornan as an Irishman suffering a severe case of amnesia in the Australian Outback. The action shifts to Ireland for the second season.
“They fitted out an old Garda station,” he said of a set that approached the scale of one on a Dick Wolf-produced show.
Lynch described spending the day with Dornan as “very inspiring.”
The Belfast actor is among those in the profession who have helped him understand, “It takes time, it’s a bit of a ladder.”
Lynch had put aside the possibility of more secure path to a professional career.
“My dad passed away when I was young – so, ‘I must be a man.’ I thought I needed to get a ‘real job,’” he said.
He remembered the view at school: “They were like, ‘Go be a doctor!’
“My mother was a nurse. It was what you did if you were somewhat smart at school and had the personality.”
“I would’ve hated it,” he believes now.
Lynch did a bachelor of science in pharmacology at University College Dublin, and upon graduation he opted not to enroll in medical school, and left Dublin.
“I took a while to commit to acting,” Lynch said, although he came to recognize that it was a “lifelong dream.”
He’d never gone to acting school, nor been part of a theatre group. “I did some classes here and there and eventually put my whole heart into it,” he said.
Lynch enjoys the audition process and did so with “Irishtown,” which uses the play-within-a-play device.
“Nicola was oddly finding it hard to find a snarky, struggling Irish actor, which I find hard to believe,” he said with a laugh.
“We had a quick Zoom, and I was invited to do a reading and I met the writer, Ciara. We all bonded really well,” Lynch said. “But I did go through the audition process as well. They were looking at different ages, teasing with the ages, teasing with the relationships between the actors.”
Lynch – who commented that “a female Irish writer and a female Irish director is great to see in American Irish theatre” – can identify with the play’s explorations. The official publicity handout says: “The Irishtown Players, a celebrated Dublin-based theatre company, have just started rehearsals for their new play. After the astounding success of their last production, the company are scheduled to open on Broadway, with the same visionary playwright at the helm.”
Angela Reed and Saoirse-Monica Jackson in a scene in "Irishtown" at the Irish Rep. [Photo by Carol Rosegg]
However, trouble arises when the actors decide her work is too experimental and not Irish enough and want to insert some of the old tropes and cliches.
“Those kinds of things are marketable,” Lynch said. “And people love them and we love them. But what else could be an Irish play?”
He stressed again that “Irishtown” is a comedy: “We said as we were rehearsing: ‘A laugh is a good thing.’ You can expect a good laugh.”
The bigger stars have helped with the humor. “Having Kate Burton and Saoirse-Monica Jackson on the play has been absolutely amazing,” Lynch said.
He described the daughter of Richard Burton, widely considered to be one of the great actors of the 20th century, as a “kind teacher in many ways.”
Lynch, who is making his Off-Broadway debut, said, “She’s taken me under her wing. For all intents and purposes, I’m fairly new, I’m fairly green. I’m not afraid to admit that and she’s just been incredible.”
If the Welsh star is a favorite from those he’s worked with, two Scottish actors are the ones he admires most from afar – Olivia Colman and James McAvoy.
“I see their work and I just get it,” Lynch said. “It really hits home for me.”
“Irishtown,” which is part of the 2025 1st Irish Festival, continues at the Irish Repertory Theatre through May 25. For details and tickets, go to irishrep.org.
