Slaughter City

March 28, 1996 - April 28, 1996
"The play has passion, poetry, and a wild strangeness. Ron Daniels's production is astonishingly successful."
— The London Guardian

Mixing reality and dream, the radical and the mystic, Slaughter City is a searing drama about life in the meat-packing industry.

Mixing reality and dream, the radical and the mystic, Slaughter City is a searing drama about life in the meat-packing industry. Kentucky poet Naomi Wallace has written a passionate protest against labor exploitation. She also takes on issues of race, gender, and the interaction of past and present. Slaughter City is full of poetry, humor, unusual characters and surprising turns of plot.

Ron Daniels directed the world premiere of Slaughter City for the Royal Shakespeare Company, opening with a British cast on January 17, 1996 at The Pit in London.

"Docudrama meets surrealism in Slaughter City, Naomi Wallace's literally and figuratively gutsy new play."
— Boston Phoenix
"The A.R.T. cast of eight . . . puts on as fine a job of ensemble acting as any in memory at the Hasty Pudding or the Loeb main stage."
— Boston Globe

Creative Team

by

Naomi Wallace

directed by

Ron Daniels

Roach, an African American worker in her mid-thirties Starla Benford
Maggot, a white worker in her mid-thirties Judith Hawking
Brandon, a white worker in his early twenties Jay Boyer
Cod, a white worker of Irish descent, mid-thirties S.J. Scruggs
Tuck, an African American, mid-forties Terry Alexander
Textile worker, a woman in her twenties Phoebe Jonas
Sausage Link Man, a white man, somewhat elderly Alvin Epstein
Mr. Baquin, a white company manager in his fifties Remo Airaldi
set and costumes by Ashley Martin-Davis
lighting by John Ambrosone
sound by Christopher Walker
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