Staff Blog
The Meatpackers Book Club, through June 14 at Walnut Street Theatre Studio 5
posted by K. Ross Hoffman
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| philadelphiatheatreworkshop.org |
More Cleaver, Less Clever
The premise of The Meatpackers Book Club, which is handily encapsulated in its title, is a moderately intriguing one. Unusual, at least; quirky, certainly. It raises a few questions: Why are these meatpackers forming a book club? What might be interesting (or at least different) about a book club made up of meatpackers? What can book clubs tell us about meatpackers, or vice versa? There may be some worthwhile and surprising answers to these questions; unfortunately, Kathy Anderson’s new play, currently being premiered by the Philadelphia Theatre Workshop, doesn’t quite manage to come up with them.
The why is somewhat shakily established in an opening scene, set on Halloween, wherein Harry (Jerry Rudasill), the play’s de-facto thinking man and perhaps most sympathetic character, convinces his co-workers (who enter dressed as a cow, a hamburger, and a giant sausage) that rather than humiliate themselves by parading in costume before their corporate bosses, they should…well… start a book club. Because it would be fun: “Not karaoke night fun, but fun.” (He also offers them $100 apiece to sweeten the deal.) Through the course of this conversation, we also learn of the serious bodily tolls that factory work has taken on each of the characters: the slow-witted but sweet-hearted Augustus (Daniel DeRosier) lost an arm in an on-the-job incident, while the conceited and fairly meatheaded Red (Nick Suders) begrudgingly reveals the persistence of an old leg injury.
Which brings us to what’s (potentially) interesting about this concept, as facile as the play’s justification for it may be: the exploration of injustice and human suffering are central – perhaps the most central – themes in the literary canon, yet we tend to think of great literature being read and discussed primarily by those whose lives have been relatively free of suffering. To be sure, the play draws out some parallels there: the meatpackers relate wholeheartedly to the struggles depicted in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, while Harry sees his life reflected in the prison setting of Dickens’ Little Dorrit and Red declares his direct likeness to Yann Martel’s Pi. But they’re much too busy bickering with one another, and too embroiled in their own melodramas – primarily a workplace love triangle revolving around the romantically susceptible smarty-pants Tiny (Kristen Schier), who, in one of the play’s better gags, is won over by a recitation of Pride & Prejudice’s opening lines – to truly bond over these recognitions, much less to find some form of mutual empowerment through them.
Despite repeated references to the indignity and inhumanity of blue-collar labor and the hazards of the packing plant in particular (as represented by increasingly outlandish, inexplicable eruptions of sci-fi sound effects, colored lights, and odors from the mysterious “Sector 8″ adjoining the breakroom – an unresolved and inscrutable sub-plot), any sustained sense of social commentary is undercut by the play’s vague, sophomoric soap-opera plotting and buffoonish attempts at comedy. There’s nothing wrong with this being a comic play, even if the “wackiness” of its premise (whose apparent absurdity is more sad than it is strange) is hardly enough to sustain the humor for long. And it’s merely unfortunate that these characters essentially come off as stock types. But the fact that their ignorance, befuddlement, and small-minded infighting – the ramifications of the very class oppression and lack of education which the play elsewhere seems to highlight – are generally played for crude laughs gives the play a surprisingly nasty streak.
Though there are moments of nonsensical wit (particularly an exchange wherein the characters discover and discuss the covert surveillance of the book club’s activities on the part of the plant’s shadowy and under-developed managerial figures), and flashes of a curiously existential black humor that suggest a blue-collar version of The Office spliced with sadistic whimsy of Waiting for Godot. But they’re mere flashes: on the whole Meatpackers Book Club is neither funny, nor fun, nor interesting enough to merit recommendation. Might I suggest karaoke night?
Through June 14, $18, Walnut Street Theatre Studio 5, 825 Walnut St., 215-316-1361, philadelphiatheatreworkshop.org.
Why does every play have to be “serious” with a deep message, which seems to be what the reviewer wants? I thought this play was funny, like an old-fashioned farce but in a more contemporary setting. This isn’t a play about whether meatpackers should/shouldn’t have book clubs (even to ask what meatpackers can teach us about book clubs suggests that it’s really odd that any of them would want to read anything remotely serious.)
The play is a fun night out. Much more fun than karaoke.