Busy kitchens contain an inherent, high-pressure drama. The backroom of Arnold Wesker’s Italian restaurant in The Kitchen is one such bubbling space, as is Lynn Nottage’s Pennsylvania sandwich shop in Clyde’s. Hannah Doran’s Papatango prize-winning play, which takes place in a butcher’s shop, joins the ranks.
Like in Nottage’s play, the formidable owner, Paula (Jackie Clune), tends to employ ex-prisoners. This brings the notion of new beginnings but also turbulent pasts and narrowed choices. Doran’s Brooklyn establishment manifests the hopes and disappointments of the nation’s underclass. It is essentially a dissection of the American dream, beginning with 4 July celebrations when the Italian-American meat store receives a massive order.
JD (Marcello Cruz) is a gifted apprentice butcher and immigrant from Mexico who needs this job to stay in the country. Billy (Ash Hunter) is a less industrious apprentice of mixed American and Dominican heritage. Head butcher David (Eugene McCoy) is a former Wall Street worker with a history of addiction. Newbie and former convict T (Mithra Malek) is Billy’s cousin, drafted in as an extra pair of hands.
Alliances form as they set about preparing the patties and cuts of meat on Mona Camille’s stainless steel set, but so do enmities. Billy and JD are pitted against each other (there is only room for one apprentice here) while Paula – rather generic in her mix of ballsiness and kindness – is under financial pressure, like her crew, and notices the books do not add up.
Directed by George Turvey, the characters have some good banter and tensions that pull some of them back into criminality as a mode of survival. Billy’s trajectory involves a seriously ill mother and highlights the lack of safety net for those who can’t afford health insurance in the US. But his growing desperation combines with a bigger sense of inadequacy to render him one-dimensionally villainous by the end.
A more convincing tenderness grows between T and JD. The latter is the most rounded character, believing in the American dream and betrayed by Trump’s administration. His plotline brings a harrowing scene featuring ICE (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement), followed by an impassioned monologue about immigration by Paula. Not every character is as well developed and the drama at times seems led by plot. But this is a vigorous first play, beautifully performed, alive and energetic, by a playwright of promise.
At Park theatre, London, until 29 November
