Park Theatre – until 29 November 2025
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
4****
Business is slow at Cafarelli & Sons, but boss Paula still takes on a summer temp in the cutting room – people will always want meat on the 4th of July, right?
Hannah Dorvan’s debut, winner of the 2024 Papatango New Writing Prize, is a scintillatingly tense play revealing the desperate measures needed to survive the brutality of chasing the American Dream. Doran isn’t American, but the characters and their motivations feel authentic and, while sometimes reprehensible, understandable.
Paula (Jackie Clune), whose grandfather founded the family butcher business 100 years ago after coming to New York from Sicily, is a straight-talking and apparently hardnosed boss who traditionally employs ex-cons in the cutting room. Senior cutter David (Eugene McCoy) is a former Wall Street hotshot whose drug habit was his downfall. Apprentices Billy (Ash Hunter) and JD (Marcello Cruz) are studying for their cutting test to become junior cutters. T (Mithra Malek) is Billy’s cousin and is the new summer temp.
The play takes place in the cutting room of the store – Mona Camille’s steel tables and hanging cuts of meat are lit starkly by Bethany Gupwell. There is a lot to set up in the first act, but Doran’s writing is so engaging, the cast are so charismatic, and George Turvey’s direction is so dynamic, that the pace and action never flag.
What starts as the usual backroom bickering takes a darker turn when Paula reveals that she can’t afford to keep all three men on – passing the test becomes vital for JD and Billy. Both men are desperate for the pay rise: Billy is caring for his mother and the payments for her cancer treatment are unmanageable on his apprentice salary, so he has quietly been taking advantage of Paula’s trust in him to make extra money, while JD needs the raise to pay for the renewal of his immigration papers. What will these two men do, and who are they willing to sacrifice, to survive?
T helps Billy in his sabotage campaign against JD at first, but her loyalties are soon tested as she gets to know JD and she must make her choice between the two men. Doran’s characters are fully rounded and recognisable. The bad choices made are completely understandable given the terrible financial and social pressures and burdens of the US system. Ash Hunter’s Billy could have been portrayed as a brash bully in lesser hands, but Hubnter’s performance is tinged with vulnerability, fear and regret. Marcello Cruz as JD is full of puppyish energy with haunted undertones and Mithra Malek’s T is wonderfully complex – loyal and fiercely protective. Jackie Clune’s character could have been something of a caricature, but Doran’s writing and Clune’s nuanced performance create a multilayered, tough but tender woman trying to keep her head above water. Eugene McCoy’s David is an enigmatic frustration – watching, joking and bitching, but never quite showing his true self. He always seems to be playing his own personal game with the others’ lives – it’s never clear whether this is out of loneliness, loyalty or spite, which feels perfect considering the character’s past.
The chilling climax is a visceral reminder of the reality and fragility of life on the fringes of American society, leaving the audience stunned and realising how wonderfully written these characters are, that their fate hits so hard.
A stunning debut from Hannah Doran – definitely a name to look out for in the future.