By SHARON EBERSON
When Traverse Theatre of Edinburgh, Scotland, has a new story to tell, Patrick Jordan, from his perch in Pittsburgh as the leader of barebones productions, takes notice.
That’s how he “stumbled onto this play, probably three or four years ago, right around the same time that I stumbled onto Crocodile Fever.”
“This play” is Ulster American, which opens October 9 at barebones’ Braddock Black Box Theater.
Both plays had been done at Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe, with David Ireland’s Ulster American winning a Scotsman Fringe First and the Critics Award for Theatre. It was later revived in London in 2023, starring Woody Harrelson as fictional Oscar-winning Hollywood actor Jay Conway, with Andy Serkis and Louisa Harland, and had its American premiere at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York in early 2026, starring Matthew Broderick.
At Irish Rep, the play was described as “a savagely funny [work] that dissects the intersection of identity politics, ego, privilege, and the Northern Irish Troubles with satirical precision.” The barebones descriptor includes, “It’s provocative, profane, unapologetically abrasive, and very, very funny.”
If you don’t know much about the Troubles, you will be schooled along with Jay, played by David Whalen, reteaming with director and frequent collaborator Jordan. Whalen’s co-star in many a Kinetic Theatre play, Simon Bradbury, plays an ambitious English director, eager to please Jay, the star of his upcoming theater project, and hosting a gathering at his home. Pittsburgh-based Christine Weber (Quantum Theatre’s The Devil Is a Lie, Enron) plays an Ulster-born playwright who identifies as British, and has written a new play about The Troubles.
Seeing Traverse’s production of Ulster American, “I laughed my ass off, even though it was dark as hell at times,” Jordan said.
With the timing right for barebones in 2026, I really needed a specific team together to do it. … I’ve talked to other people who have read it from, you know, other places regionally, and they’re like, ‘Oh, that place is so hard.’ But it’s not if you have the right people that just kind of have an innate timing, rhythm, sense of humor, and our cast is fantastic.”
Whalen’s character has just won an Oscar, and has decided to return to his theater roots, while Bradbury’s director is hoping to keep his star happy and boost his own career.
“Christine Weber is this Northern Irish playwright who has been working with Simon’s character and has this really hot play that’s really visceral, and it’s enamored David’s character to come do it, and everything should be working out well, but shockingly, things go south quickly.”
The 30-year Troubles that pitted Nationalists against Loyalists and Protestants against Catholics, and our understanding of them from afar, are central to the plot.
“What was appealing to me was how little a lot of people actually know about it or think about what it was, here in the States,” Jordan said. “So there’s a lot of geopolitical stuff that kind of comes up in it, that gets explained very clearly, with this backdrop of this play that was set in those times.”
Despite the seriousness of the play-within-a-play’s subject, Jordan said that Ulster American is an equal-opportunity offender. “It lampoons everything,” he said. “It goes after wokeness.It goes after politics. It goes after theater. It goes after Hollywood. …”
And to accomplish that, Jordan believes he has assembled the perfect cast to mine what happens when all of those elements collide onstage.
“So these three,” he said of watching Whalen, Bradbury and Weber dig into their roles, “it’s like a powder keg going off.”
TiCKETS AND DETAILS
Ulster American is at barebones productions Braddock Black Box Theater,1211 Braddock Ave., October 8 (preview night) through October 25. Tickets: https://www.barebonesproductions.com/ulsteramerican.
Categories: Feature Stories, Our Posts, Show Previews
Leave a Reply