“Performances are stunning. Timing is impeccable.
“No need to say more. Just go“
Kate Stratford
5 /5 Bloody Oscars
Outrageous, offensive, outré, outlandish. And bloody brilliant.
I missed Outhouse’s Ulster American the first time around. Heard about it. Words such as “ferocious, raucous, wildly disgusting, savage, electrifying” were thrown about. And thought, perhaps, the hype could be a bit over the top. You only have to ask Jeremy Water’s character Jay Conway about critic’s words to know how often we over-dramatise. To the point perhaps where we should be killed and eaten. Or so Conway thinks. Eager to appease this Oscar winning actor, the London director Leigh Carver (Brian Meegan) faintly agrees, as he does to Conway’s even more brutal observations; setting up the inevitable violent denouement with the Irish/British writer Ruth Davenport (Harriet Gordon-Anderson).
So there you have it. Throw an actor, a director and a writer into a room together. Each with an inflated, obsessed sense of self; an insatiable greed for wider recognition and a need for attention which outsizes even that of a two year old and you have what is possibly one of the best black comedies ever written. David Ireland’s work is up there with that of Martin McDonagh and Ulster American is a sort of Mamet on steroids. The work elicits gasps, moans, laughter (both willing and unwilling) and even awed comments from the audience in a thoroughly engaging eighty minutes where every moment is beautifully earned by the cast and director (Shane Anthony). All on a clever set which conveys money and privilege yet is narrow and restricted in vision. A lesson on how to design a set to reflect a play’s intent (Veronique Bennet).
Performances are stunning. Timing is impeccable.
Sometimes theatre can be a true work of art.
No need to say more. Just go. You will talk about it for days, lacing your conversation with “You have to go see it!”
Kate Stratford, Theatre Now
Event Details
Riverside theatre production has closed. Seymour Centre return season 15 – 18 June
