By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Saturday 13 January (matinee), runs through 27 January 2024 RUNTIME: 105 minutes (no interval)

We had 4 walk-outs and at least 1 audience member crying during this provocative 3-hander comedy without interval.

• Read on for reasons including how this 3-hander is occasionally hilarious but always thought-provoking

We perhaps should have known what we were in for but we deliberately postponed re-reading our review of author David Ireland’s previous best known work – Cyprus Avenue starring Stephen Rea at the Royal Court in 2019 – until after seeing this.

We’ve never seen Harrelson, nominated for an Oscar 3 times without winning and the last time for Martin McDonagh’s film Three Billboards, onstage before but the last time was in London’s West End for The Night Of The Iguana in 2005.

In the programme, he writes: ‘I got into theatre my senior year of high school. Being onstage fed my adrenaline junkie tendencies, so I found my way into many plays in college. While in LA, a college actor friend recommended I audition for a TV show called Cheers‘, for which he won an Emmy in 1989. ‘We filmed in front of a live audience so that thrill continued.’

He goes on to describe Iguana as ‘a particularly unsatisfying experience that put me off theatre for 18 years’ without explaining why and how the movie strikes meant he brought forward his plans to initially perform in this play in 2025.

He also describes how he worked with his co-star Serkis previously on film War For The Planet Of The Apes and how they had discussed performing his favourite play, Lonesome West by McDonagh, his favourite playwright.

Here Harrelson (who starred in film Natural Born Killers with a Tarantino screenplay) plays Jay Conway, a Catholic-sympathising Oscar winning American actor, who has been cast in a play about the Troubles by Protestant Ruth Davenport, given life by an excellent Louisa Harland (Dancing At Lughnasa, National Theatre) and will be directed by Brit Leigh Carver played by Serkis. We think Harrelson must have a sense of humour because his character is lampooning a popular view of the ignorance of the Hollywood elite of which he is part.

We’re in Carver’s Londo living room the night before rehearsals start as Harrelson’s Conway asks the director about use of the ‘N-word’ and who he would rape if at gunpoint by Jesus who was threatening to destroy the world.

Harland’s author arrives and we learn Harrelson’s actor has misunderstood the material and is obsessing about his character’s need for an eyepatch as Brexit-opposing Carver seeks to find compromise to ensure the actor remains with the piece while Harland’s author refuses to change a word of her play.

It was our companion who chose to see this play and felt it was more of a 3* experience and the farce it became (with Ireland’s Oscar, like Chekhov’s gun, once seen, impossible not to utilise) feeling like shock tactics once anything worth saying had become exhausted.

However, we felt director Jeremy Herrin allowed a natural build enabling the male characters to expose their misogyny with the conclusion being outrageous but indicative of how much work this occasionally hilarious but always thought-provoking 3-hander had done.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Riverside Studios
• Have you seen Ulster American before and are what did you think of this production? Tickets
• Let us know what you thought in the comments below
• Enjoyed this review? Follow monstagigz on Twitter @NeilDurham, email neildurham3@gmail.com and check us out on Instagram and Facebook