“Building the Wall” opened in New York a year ago this week, six months after Donald Trump was elected. The work of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan (”The Kentucky Cycle,” “All the Way”) was among the first explicitly post-Trump election theaterworks to hit New York.

The Guardian newspaper called the play’s London production “a chilling dystopian drama” — set in 2019. Jesse Green of The New York Times wondered about the timing, writing, “Without introspection, how valuable is the result? It is a very rare political work that speaks directly to its time from its time.”

In a world of nonstop tweets and constant breaking news from the White House, is any play written now, about the current administration, too soon?

Pittsburgh gets its first look at “Building the Wall” this weekend, courtesy of 12 Peers Theatre, in its seventh season of presenting “contemporary works exploring myth and cultural identity.”

“We knew we had to do it now, because if we do it later, it becomes an alternate history play. Right now, it’s a cautionary tale, and some of the things in the play are starting to diverge a bit from reality,” said Vince Ventura, a 12 Peers co-founder. The play is directed by Ricardo Vila-Roger.

“The questions we were interested in posing are relevant right now, and I think they change if we don’t do it right now.”

Off-Broadway, the two-hander starred McKeesport native Tamara Tunie (”Law & Order: SVU,” “Blue Bloods,” Netflix’s “Dietland”) and James Badge Dale as Rick, who is awaiting sentencing for a catastrophic bombing. He grants one interview — to Gloria, an African-American historian.

Playwright Schenkkan, in his notes on the play, wrote: “Several years ago I stumbled across ‘Into That Darkness’ by Gitta Sereny. It is an attempt to understand the bleakest of the Nazi horrors by focusing on one ordinary man who, for a brief moment, found himself with unlimited power. The past is often the future, and in this play, I have imagined a not so distant time to come in which President Trump’s rhetoric has found its full expression.”

The intent with “Building the Wall,” Mr. Schenkkan writes, is to challenge the notion of our response to leaders who “encourage fear, divide the populace and scapegoat minorities with appeals to nationalism, racism and isolationism. ... The question, of course, is not so much what the Authorities will do but how we, the citizens, will respond. … Will we enthusiastically put our shoulders to their dark wheel? Or will we resist?”

Political plays most often look at immediate situations and aspire to resonance. Mr. Schenkkan was aiming for relevance in the here and now. Each new news cycle — sometimes minute to minute — is felt in the rehearsal room every day, Mr. Ventura said.

The director’s hope is to look at “Building the Wall” more as a building block of understanding and compassion.

“I’m primarily concerned with the ‘what if?’ of the situation; I’m mainly concerned with inspiring a discussion. The questions we’re asking kind of shift … maybe it becomes about the political discourse as opposed to civil liberties. So, the questions we were interested in posing are relevant right now, and I think they change if we don’t do it right now,” he said.

“Building the Wall” fits in with the season’s mission of examining American institutions. The next play on the schedule, with an obscenity in the title, “is about challenging your manifest destiny and forging your own path in a better, more compassionate way. I think we all need to take a deep breath, listen to each other and find solutions moving forward that included everyone”

Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.

First Published: May 24, 2018, 11:00 a.m.