Meat Kings! (Inc) to review Brooklyn Heights – The American Dream on the Chopping Board | stage

forUsed kitchens have an inherent high-pressure drama. The back room of Arnold Wesker’s Italian restaurant The Kitchen is one such lively space, as is Lynn Nottage’s Pennsylvania sandwich shop at Clyde’s. Hannah Doran’s award-winning play Papatango, set in a butcher’s shop, joins our ranks.

As in Nottage’s play, the formidable landlord, Paula (Jackie Clune), tends to employ ex-convicts. This brings the idea of ​​new beginnings but also a turbulent past and narrow choices. Duran’s Brooklyn institution shows the hopes and disappointments of the country’s underclass. It’s basically a dissection of the American Dream, starting with the number 4 July festivities are when the Italian-American butcher shop receives a huge order.

J.D. (Marcelo Cruz) is a talented butcher and immigrant from Mexico who needs this job to stay in the country. Billy (Ash Hunter) is a less diligent intern of mixed American and Dominican heritage. Butcher’s boss David (Eugene McCoy) is a former Wall Street worker with a history of addiction. Newbie and ex-convict T (Mithra Malik) is Billy’s cousin, and has been recruited as an extra pair of hands.

Alliances are formed as they set about preparing pies and steaks on Mona Camille’s stainless steel set, but so are enmities. Billy and J.D. battle against each other (there’s only room for one intern here) while Paula – her general mix of arrogance and kindness – is under financial pressure, as is her staff, and notices that the books are worthless.

Directed by George Turvey, the characters have some good banter and tensions that bring some of them back to crime as a means of survival. Billie’s track includes a seriously ill mother, and highlights the lack of a safety net for those who cannot afford health insurance in the United States. But his increasing desperation combines with a greater sense of inadequacy to ultimately make him a one-dimensional villain.

The most convincing tenderness grows between T and JD. The latter is the most rounded character, believing in the American dream and betrayed by the Trump administration. Its plot presents a horrific scene featuring ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), followed by an impassioned monologue about immigration by Paula. Not all of the characters are well developed, and the drama sometimes seems to be driven by the plot. But this is a powerful first play, beautifully performed, lively and energetic, by a promising playwright.