Robert Jack, Darrell D'Silvia, and Lucianne McEvoy in Ulster American (photograph by Tony Lewis)

It’s a classic dramatic set-up: two characters are introduced to each other and the audience, the author moves them through a series of conversational and situational expositions, and all the time the audience knows that the third participant in the drama will at some stage appear and disrupt things even more. It’s a device that Harold Pinter used to brilliant effect, and it’s no accident that he gets a mention during the course of the at times urbane, at times hysterical, discussions of matters theatrical.

This is no tired reworking of a well-worn dramaturgical ploy, but an exhilarating ride which begins like a roller-coaster experience and plunges off the rails into something like an existential demolition derby. Along the way (or on the ride) there are coruscating exchanges, blistering attacks on every possible sacred cow, stripping away of social and personal veneers (pretty thin in the first place), and explorations of topics so taboo that politeness (and the wish to not give away either the jokes or the punchlines) prevents me from even attempting a summary. Well, that, and the fact that, without the careful pitch and shape of Ireland’s dialogue and language, the force of the exchanges would come out flat in paraphrase.

Robert Jack and Darrell D'Silva in Ulster American (photograph by Sid Scott)

On the other hand, there are epigrams and punchlines aplenty – rather as if we were watching an Oscar Wilde play after he’d spent some time boning up on the styles and topics of contemporary Irish playwrights such as Conor McPherson and Martin McDonagh – though there are areas in this play which, I suspect, not even they would have ventured into. But Ireland’s gift for setting up punchlines yields some real gems along the way: for example, a discussion initiated by the ego-bound actor on the topic of James Baldwin culminates in the English director declaring, in bewilderment, that he was totally unaware of the fact that Alec Baldwin had a black, gay brother.

No one is safe from the characters’ (and playwright’s) attacks: we learn that the only thing the actor wants to read from a theatre critic is ‘a fuckin’ suicide note’; that theatre needs something other than ‘two men talking about something other than another man’ – a situation the playwright smartly avoids by then bringing on the young female ‘Irish’ playwright, who finds herself in what seems like a no-win situation with two males who ‘love her work’ but feel it needs a few slight alterations/additions to make it truly accessible, like, as the actor suggests, ‘some Irish dancing’ – an idea emphatically dismissed by the young author with the compelling reasoning that the principal character in her play is a Protestant, and ‘Protestants don’t dance.’ Such a crucial point is cogently dismissed by the two males by arguing that ‘that is precisely the right reason for putting it in: that way we are challenging archetypes, and authenticity is potentially alienating’.

Robert Jack and Darrell D'Silva in Ulster American (photograph by Sid Scott)

But the writing in this riveting, savage, hilarious exposé of pretentions, aspirations, and the world of the theatre would not be as electrifying, intelligent, and laugh-out loud funny as it is without the trio of standout performances and the beautifully paced direction of Gareth Nicholls. Darrell D’Silva’s Jay Conway, the Oscar-winning, manipulative actor – at times bullying, at others mouthing self-serving apophthegms – gives a performance that manages to combine sound, fury, and doses of anodyne thespian ‘Truth’, when needed. Robert Jack as the slightly fey, accommodating director Leigh Carver is a perfect foil in a role which D’Silva’s Conway could have steamrolled into the wings; and as the play progresses, this sheep in sheep’s clothing turns surprisingly feral. Meanwhile, Lucianne McEvoy, as the young, initially poised playwright Ruth Davenport, establishes the character’s strong sense of her identity from her first entrance. Sure of her opinions, she is not intimidated by the actor’s numerous suggestions to improve her – already strong – text, and, in the last moments of the play, she shows that she is just as capable of fighting her corner as the two males.

I doubt whether a funnier, more caustic, brilliantly acted satire will be seen on Australian stages this year, or maybe even next – unless, of course, other Australian companies take it up.

Ulster American was performed by the Traverse Theatre Company 13–17 March 2019 as part of the Adelaide Festival. Performance attended: March 15.