"Ulster American". Burton Taylor Studio
Just over a year ago, Caeli Colgan and Aaron Gelkoff lit up the Burton Taylor Studio in Oisin Byrne's meta-comedy about acting, Unprofessional . Now they're back (along with Rohan Joshi on one of his rare sorties beyond the walls of St John's College) to scratch that itch again. David Ireland's daring, outrageous play is a real-time pressure-cooker with no 'off' button. It's about a famous American actor (Gelkoff), a celebrated English theatre director (Joshi) and the Ulster-based writer of the play they're about to start rehearsing (Colgan) meeting up to discuss the show. At least that's how it starts. By the end it looks like the aftermath of a Quentin Tarantino movie. Tarantino is frequently mentioned with viciously tongue-in-cheek reverence in the script. But where his violence is borne of a need to shock, Ireland's comes from somewhere deeper: a need to break out of the hypocrisy of performative language that acts as both armour and disguise...