Slaughter City
Description
Mixing reality and dream, the radical and the mystic, SLAUGHTER CITY is a searing drama about life in the meat-packing industry.
Production Info
Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
Press Quotes
“It’s not just the blood-spattered slaughterhouse setting that makes the Royal Shakespeare Company’s SLAUGHTER CITY an unusually meaty (you’ll forgive the expression) new play. Aligning issues of class and race and labor dynamics to a surrealist aesthetic as elusive as her politics are straightforward, American writer Naomi Wallace shows a willingness to embrace topics once treated by the likes of Clifford Odets and Sophie Treadwell. These days, such terrain is left to the movies — Paul Schrader’s Blue Collar, among others — but the pulse of Wallace’s writing is of and for the theater. Hers may not be the most audience-friendly of voices, but even her opacity commands attention.” —Matt Wolf, Variety
“Naomi Wallace’s SLAUGHTER CITY, which gets its premiere in The Pit, is a strange and compelling play that unties two elements in the American tradition — the radical and the mystic. If it reminds me of anyone it is the Walt Whitman who wrote of ‘the audacity of freedom’ and the need for America to free itself from the anti-democratic European past. On the radical level, the play is a passionate protest against exploitation … the play has passion, poetry and a wild strangeness. Wallace also writes highly effective individual scenes … Most cheering of all is Wallace’s adventurous attempt to redefine political drama in terms of a feminist surrealism.” —Michael Billington, The Guardian
Author
Naomi WallaceNaomi Wallace is a playwright from Kentucky. Her plays — which have been produced in the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, and the Middle East — include IN THE HEART OF AMERICA, SLAUGHTER CITY, ONE FLEA SPARE, THE TRESTLE AT POPE LICK CREEK, THINGS OF DRY HOURS, THE FEVER CHART: THREE VISION OF THE MIDDLE EAST, AND I AND SILENCE, THE HARD WEATHER BOATING PARTY, THE LIQUID PLAIN. Her stage adaptation of William Wharton's novel Birdy was produced on the West End in London. In 2009, ONE FLEA SPARE was incorporated in the permanent repertoire of the French National Theater, the Comédie- Francaise. Only two American playwrights have been added to La Comédie's repertoire in 300 years. Films: Lawn Dogs, The War Boys, Flying Blind (co-written with Bruce McLeod). Awards: Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (twice), Joseph Kesselring Prize, Fellowship of Southern Writers Drama Award, Obie Award, and the 2012 Horton Foote Award for most promising new American play. She is also a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts development grant. In 2013, Wallace received the inaugural Windham Campbell prize for drama and in 2015, an Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 8/17/2018 |
| Pages | 88 |
| ISBN | 9780881457797 |
Special Notes
SLAUGHTER CITY had its first performance at the Royal Shakespeare Company in January 1996
The play was produced by American Repertory Theatre in March 1996
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com