~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Slaughter City

by Naomi Wallace
review in Oakland Tribune April 13, 2004 (Chad Jones)

Tickets & Directions / Home / Now Playing & Coming Soon / Back to Media List / To email us

 

Crowded Fire's 'Slaughter City' evokes nightmarish mooood

 

IF Naomi Wallace's "Slaughter City" were a steak, it would be a tough but flavorful T-bone cooked on the medium-well side.

Wallace is a poet and a playwright. Her work trades in, among other things, dream imagery, ghosts, eroticism and intense drama.

It's no wonder her 1996 work "Slaughter City," about the horrors of a slaughter house, makes its local premiere with San Francisco's Crowded Fire Theater Company.

In seven years, Crowded Fire has become the go-to company when you want something challenging but well produced. Even if you have no idea what's happening on stage (as in last year's world premiere of "'Maid"), it's easy to appreciate the skill of the actors and designers involved.

"Slaughter City," which opened Saturday at the EXIT Theatre, is an intriguing mix of the obtuse and the accessible.

In attempting to convey something about the American labor movement, the soullessness of factory work and the effects of industry on the human body, Wallace bites off more than she can possibly chew in 21/2 hours.

But she tries, and mostly succeeds, especially in dealing with the most intimate aspects of the physically demanding, emotionally deadening work in a hog or cow slaughterhouse.

Director Rebecca Novick handles Wallace's broad, bloody canvas well. On one level, there's the reality of the work happening on the "kill floor." Pegeen McGhan's simple set takes good advantage of the EXIT's exposed brick walls to create an industrial feel. The same is true of Dave Robertson's lights, which help smooth the transitions from the harshness of the working world into the more abstract moments when time and fantasy begin to merge in odd ways.

At its best, "Slaughter City" focuses on a small crew of workers that includes Maggot (Ellen Scarpaci), Roach (Mollena Williams) and Brandon (John Atwood). They suffer the physical impact of repetitive stress disorders, on-the-job injuries and labor disputes. The decent manager, Tuck (Michael Wayne Rice), has worked his way through the ranks.

But his goodness is eclipsed by the exaggerated evil of Mr. Baquin (Paul Lancour), a boss whose office is inside a giant revolving rib cage. The man thinks nothing of humiliating or sexually degrading the tough women in his employ, and he's more than willing to lie to cover up the death of a worker. He also happens to be slowly turning into a cow.

Romance blossoms between Roach and Brandon, although race and a significant age difference threaten to divide them. Maggot gets her first taste of true love with Cod (Gillian Chadsey playing a woman disguised as a man), a mysterious scab worker who crossed the picket line during the last strike.

With Cod comes the play's more lyrical and less successful component. Cod is the employee of Sausage Man (Alan Quismorio), a devil-like spirit who sets fires -- literal and metaphorical -- to incite rebellion and sweeping change.

Chadsey's ferocity and Quismorio's elusiveness go a long way toward making this part of the play work, but it distracts from the more interesting characters in the slaughterhouse and the ways they bond, fight and survive the carnage of their daily lives.

The cast, which also includes Juliet Tanner as the ghostly victim of a factory fire, is completely committed to making this dreamlike -- occasionally nightmarish -- play work on multiple levels.

Ultimately, "Slaughter City" is a powerful, unsettling experience. In one messy package, the play manages to be a tirade against worker injustice and an erotic ode to the abused bodies of workers everywhere.

Now that's a cut of meat you won't find just anywhere.

Home / Now Playing & Coming Soon / Back to Media List / To email us