★★★★

“Director George Turvey keeps the play dynamic and ever surprising”

Hannah Doran’s feisty new play The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights beat 1,588 competitors to win Papatango’s 2024 New Writing Prize and you can see why. A love story, workplace rivalries, second chances, deceit and high stakes (if you’ll indulge the pun) are all coursing through the cutting room of a family-run butcher shop.

Two apprentice butchers find themselves in competition for a promotion, and as their cut test is fast approaching, they enlist the help of their colleagues to win at any price. With raw meat and sharp knives on stainless-steel counters, and the thrum of salsa music in the background, the butchery is a pressure cooker as America’s structural violence swirls outside. Impossible health care costs, corporate takeovers driving out small business owners, and anti-immigration policies all become intensely personal as each of Doran’s finely drawn characters tries to survive.

From the moment the actors enter dancing and teasing one another to sound designer Asaf Zohar’s compelling soundtrack, the acting is uniformly strong. As Billy, Ash Hunter is jaded and vulnerable in equal measure. Mithra Malek, as the vegetarian T, is grounded and never pushes – so her rush of rage toward the end feels earned and raw. Jackie Clune’s Paula is incredibly believable, her no-nonsense warmth and urgency giving pace and push to the rest. And Marcello Cruz plays the fresh-faced naïve “Dreamer” with just enough playfulness and sincerity that you can’t help but fall in love. Dialect coach Caitlin Stegemoller ensures their Brooklyn accents are all pitch perfect.

Director George Turvey keeps the play dynamic and ever surprising, leaving us with a powerful and unsettling image that begs the question – who and what is really being butchered here? Mona Camille’s set design and Bethany Gupwell’s lighting not only evoke a butcher shop’s back room, contained with its curtains of translucent strips of plastic, but the well-calibrated wing lighting constantly reminds us of the pulsing world off-stage as well – the front of the shop, the refrigerated backroom where the meat is kept, the rough streets beyond.

And this is the ultimate strength of Doran’s play – how it brings the damaged outside world into the personal lives of the characters, exploring the extent to which our individual choices make a difference in the face of broader inequities and bigotry. T’s somewhat sanctimonious speech in the last third of the play admonishing her cousin Billy’s tendency to blame the system for his mistakes is the only false note as it oversimplifies and undercuts what is otherwise a very sophisticated and complex exploration of America’s predicament. As ICE becomes a household name, as New York elects its new mayor, this is a play that is even more relevant and haunting today than it was when it was written last year.

FAREWELL MR HAFFMANN

Park Theatre

★★★★

“Tension and relief are hallmarks of this production as director Oscar Toeman steers us through the shifting moods with slick clarity”

There is a recurring line in Jean-Phillipe Daguerre’s play, “Farewell Mister Haffmann”, that is reprised by nearly all the characters at some point. ‘Courage is stronger than fear’. The quotation could have come from the hand of Mark Twain, Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela. In some paraphrased version it has probably been cited by many of our respected world leaders and philosophers. It carries the danger of becoming a glib, self-help-manual style platitude, but in the context of this play (translated by Jeremy Sams) it is a crucial motif. Sometimes delivered comically, but more often with poignancy; it exemplifies the fearless way in which Daguerre tackles his subject matter – turning a global narrative into an intimate, human story that is funny – almost farcical. But don’t be complacent. It can suddenly turn on you with the unpredictability of a dangerous dog.

Inspired by Daguerre’s great-grandparents who hid Polish Jews from the Nazis, it is set in Paris over two years from May 1942. Joseph Haffmann (Alex Waldmann), having sent his wife and children to Geneva, decides to hand over his jewellery shop to his loyal, hardworking, non-Jewish assistant, Pierre Vigneau (Michael Fox). It comes with a condition, however. Pierre and his wife Isabelle (Jennifer Kirby) must agree to move into Joseph’s house and hide him in the cellar until normality is resumed. A further twist has Pierre lay down his own condition. His marriage is childless. Unable to get his wife pregnant, he asks Joseph to do the honours as his side of the bargain.

It is all very matter of fact. The scenes flash by in a series of short bursts. Patently, Isabelle is initially reluctant of the proposition made by her husband on her behalf. Less obviously, Pierre is modestly reticent to take over the business. The conversations are awkward and wrought with moral dilemmas. The decisions are made during the semi-dark scene transitions, so we see the causes and the consequences. Kirby is marvellous as Isabelle, presenting the fragile façade that all is well, but letting us know that it will shatter at any moment. Fox’s Pierre, nervous yet jovial at first, slips into angst and jealousy. Whilst his wife does the ‘deed’ with Haffmann, he goes out tap dancing; a routine that he uses to distract himself from what’s going on in the cellar. As the months go by, the dance steps acquire more and more freneticism. All three performances remarkably show the unravelling nature of each personality as the stakes are raised.

It is a jagged little piece. Not every issue is followed through successfully, but the character arcs are well formed. This feels very much like a three hander. Until art-loving, Nazi ambassador Otto Abetz (Nigel Harman) arrives at the eleventh hour. His presence has already been felt and has been a major source of contention between the others so far. Everything changes when Otto arrives for dinner, along with his loose-tongued wife, Suzanne (Jemima Rooper). A dinner served with huge side orders of tension, broken only by Suzanne’s coarse and tactless interjections. Rooper is a sheer delight with her precise comic timing and delivery. Harman, however, keeps her in check with a performance that chills. We teeter between wanting to laugh or letting our jaws drop to the floor in shock. The stillness of Harman’s portrayal conceals a simmering and dangerous mind.

The shift in tone works remarkably well as we are caught as much off guard as the characters within the play. Tension and relief are hallmarks of this production as director Oscar Toeman steers us through the shifting moods with slick clarity; while Asaf Zohar’s sound and Christopher Nairne’s lighting slice the action into glorious bit-sized vignettes. It is a unique portrayal of a much-explored piece of history, made all the more pertinent and unsettling by its light-hearted intimacy. A hasty epilogue slightly dampens the overall effect, but is arguably necessary to cement where Daguerre’s – and our – sympathies lie. We can only imagine the choices people had to make at such a perilous time in history. “Farewell Mister Haffmann” fires our imaginations brilliantly and powerfully. Refreshingly short and sharp but full of savage twists, it is shockingly funny.

THE MEAT KINGS! (INC.) OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

Park Theatre

★★★★

“Director George Turvey keeps the play dynamic and ever surprising”

THE MEAT KINGS! (INC.) OF BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

Park Theatre

Reviewed on 4th November 2025

by Samantha Karr

Photography by Mark Douet

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE MEAT KINGS

THE MEAT KINGS

THE MEAT KINGS

FAREWELL MR HAFFMANN

Park Theatre

★★★★

“Tension and relief are hallmarks of this production as director Oscar Toeman steers us through the shifting moods with slick clarity”