Archives - July 2003

SLAUGHTERHOUSE
by Norman Robbins

Produced by Mike Liassides

THE PLAY

Modern comedy thriller, set in a remote country mansion. Ageing horror film star Romney Marsh gathers a group of theatre people at his home, ostensibly to read a new play. However, it is a trap: surrounded by a moat full of piranha and grounds patrolled by killer dogs, Romney intends to find out which of them has been sending him press cuttings about the late actress Mabel Monk. That plan goes awry, when actress Tanya is found with her throat cut and Romney himself is poisoned. The remaining guests, one by one, are being stalked and killed by one of their number.

It is left to veteran stager Edith to figure out which of them it is and why: eventually identifying Mabel Monk's illegitimate son Freddy as the culprit. More than that, though, Edith wants revenge for the death of her beloved Romney and the play ends as she tricks Freddy into being eaten by the piranha!

FROM THE GROUP

Slaughterhouse. There's no escaping that it's not a good name for a play, especially when it's actually more of a standard Ten Little Indians affair than an outright bloodbath! Trying to publicise it without giving the wrong impression was a nightmare.

The plot actually isn't anything very new or special, but I particularly liked the ending: as Freddy - trying to escape via the moat - screams his last, one of the characters says to Edith: "You said they were all dead!" and she just smiles back: "I lied.".
Ending aside, what the play really brought to mind were classic British horror stars, as though the entire cast of "Theatre of Blood" had been reunited twenty years on. That was what I had in mind when directing the action and the stage was very much based on those garish early-70s movie sets. Given the script's enthusiasm for mixing up stereotypes and cliches with twists and shocks, there wasn't really any point in trying to take it seriously: the result was a deliberately, theatrically camp production with tongue firmly held in cheek. I thought it worked like that, although - to be fair - the dialogue itself could have been written better. Or, at least in places, briefer.

Not a play that will ever be spoken of in the same breath as Shakespeare, then, but one which was rather fun to do. And it must be said that Ken turned in a pretty fair Vincent Price impression!
Mike - Producer

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