by Geoff Hoff~

(Full Disclosure: Slaughter City was produced by one of LATR’s newest writers, Ashley Steed.)

According to the program notes by director Barbara Kallir, Slaughter City, now playing at Son of Semele, is a play about how relevant the case for collective action and working class solidarity still is today.  This is a valid and apt theme, but it doesn’t seem the play really is about that.  Yes, the management is trying to break the union in the slaughter house where it takes place, but the production and script seem to be more about examining the difference between Us and Them.  The Us is always informed.  The Them never is.  However, who Us is and who Them is changes from moment to moment.  It is Workers and Bosses, Blacks and Whites, Male and Female, Union and Scab, Educated and Not, Monied and Poor.  Even Human and Animal and Mortal and Immortal.

The play is sometimes surreal and dreamlike, sometimes exceedingly graphic and realistic.  A young man named Cod, a scab initially shunned by the rest of the workers, (played by Noelle Messier) becomes the loudest union activist, even to the detriment of his fellow employees.  He also has several secrets, one of which is that he has been made an immortal being whose mother died trying to escape a fire in a non-unionized factory in the early nineteen hundreds.  He is in thrall to an odd “Sausage Man” from whom he desperately wants to divest himself.

The Sausage Man, a difficult part very well played by Alexander Wells, carries most of the symbolism of the script.  He is, both literally and figuratively, taking the scraps and making sausage out of them, taking what’s left over and making something useful out of it.

Everyone has their secrets.  It is no surprise when child abuse and sexual harassment come in to play, they are this generation’s go to place for conflict and background motivation.  There are, however, a couple of surprising secrets which I won’t reveal here.

There is much to like about this production.  The sound design, by Joseph “Sloe” Slawinski, is magnificent.  It is never intrusive, usually evocative, sometimes surreal, often odd and always organic to the moment.  The music, composed by Andrew Ingkavet and directed by Matthew McCray, is appropriate and evocative.  The lighting, designed by Barbara Kallir and Jonathan CK Williams, is exquisite, especially given how few instruments they have at their disposal.  The set, by Sarah Krainin, is very good, although the animal carcasses hanging everywhere (designed by Janne Larsen) are a little too obviously cloth, lacquer and wire.  Perhaps that was a conscious choice.

The play itself, and, more to the point, the direction and acting, do not live up to the tech.  The three main killing floor workers are played by Sarah Boughton, Christopher Emerson and Christina Ogundade.  Ms. Ogundade as Roach does have some wonderful and affecting moments and her anger at life in general and love for her best friend are quite genuine.  Ms. Boughton as the hard bitten Maggot obviously understands that her character is what most would consider “Poor White Trash” but tends toward the “If you don’t quite know what you’re doing, do it with intensity” style of acting.  Mr. Emerson is quite good looking but a bit miscast as the unpredictable, dangerous but talented cutter, Brandon.  He has moments on stage that speak more to his willingness as an actor to give his performance over to complete abandon than to the internal torment of the outwardly charming character.  It is also hard to believe that this almost Tom Cruise-like young man has spent any time at all doing the hard labor required of a slaughter house worker.

Baquin, the manager of the plant and mouth-piece for the corporation, is an empty, blustering, dandy overflowing with pompous machismo, played by Bart Petty.  Elizabeth Clemmons plays the dream-like Textile Worker with an almost permanent, empty smile.  Brent Jennings plays Tuck, the floor manager, who worked himself up from laborer to management but is still conflicted by his advancement.  (It always bothers me when a story seems to be saying, don’t strive, don’t try to advance beyond your station because, in doing so, you will have sold out.  I say advance as far as you can in life.  But that’s just me.)

The staging is odd and inconsistent.  It runs from extremely realistic portrayals of anger, passion and violence supported by extremely realistic set and props (cloth carcasses notwithstanding) to odd pantomime indications of actions that don’t quite evoke the difficult work of the killing floor and strange, choreographed unison movements that sort of evoke a dream-like trance but often feel out of place.

The costumes, by Laura Wong, are good, although much is made in the script about the Sausage Man having “triple stitched” suit, better than the “double stitched” one of the boss, but in reality, the suit Mr. Petty as the boss wears is exquisitely tailored and Mr. Wells as the Sausage Man’s suit is rumpled, pedestrian and old.

Slaughter City is performed Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 7 pm through March 21st, 2010.  There will be Monday night performances at 8 pm on March 8th and 15th.  There is no performance on Sunday, March 7th.

Son of Semele Theatre  is located at 3301 Beverly Blvd., Silver Lake, CA 90004, just east of Virgil and a mile west of Alvarado.

Ticket prices: $20.00

Reservations online at www.sonofsemele.org.