“This is not an easy watch by any stretch, but it’s an important one.”
“Not so long ago in a land far away…” Michael Mears begins, as though telling an old folk tale. The tragedy of Hiroshima does indeed feel like a story, so unreal in its violence and scope, so evil in its intentions. But of course, it’s not a story: On the 6th August 1945 at 8:15am, the USA dropped the first atomic bomb, killing around 100,000 citizens and injuring generations to come.
Mears’ script tells the tale from multiple perspectives- a young woman caught in the blast, the pilot who actually did the deed, and a scientist whose research was integral to the initial science that made it possible. In this way, we see, not just the catastrophic effects, but also how many people were involved in the decision, and how many opportunities they had to make a different one.
Mears and Emiko Ishii play multiple roles, swapping easily with the mere change of an accent and a different jacket. It’s easy enough to understand who is playing whom, whilst also having the effect of showing how much all of these people have in common. If one had simply been born in a different time or country, how different their destinies might have been.
The performances are generally understated, allowing the script, often verbatim, to do the talking. It’s tempting to imagine this with a full cast, but Mears and Ishii do an excellent job at keeping storylines clear and lending a different atmosphere to each character.
What with all the chopping and changing between timelines and characters, and the major occurrence happening right at the beginning, the dynamics of tension are a little erratic, but I suppose the alternative would have been a sustained tension, which would have been emotionally exhausting, even more so than this story already necessarily is.
Mark Friend’s staging is respectfully simple- a chalk board, a walking stick, and two briefcases full of costumes do all the heavy lifting. Where called for, the chalk board becomes the unsteady wings of a plane, the walking stick becomes a spade, shovelling dead bodies into a fire. The only prop that remains sacred is a small red notebook, the diary of 21-year-old Nomura Shigeko who survived the initial blast, only to become one of its victims in a slow, painful death caused by radiation.
This is not an easy watch by any stretch, but it’s an important one. Mears has found a way to communicate a catastrophe that is near unspeakable, forcing his audience to look directly at what humanity is capable of, and asking if we really learned anything from this mistake.
Whilst the Vault tunnels have been home to all sorts over the years, there’s no doubt that its truest form is horror; the dark interiors, cold brick walls dripping with condensation, the thud-thud-thud of occasional trains overhead. What else could you ask for to be put in the mood for terror-striking blood and gore?
Expial Atrocious’s Butchered seems especially fitting given it takes place deep underground, below the greedy, glutinous Top Steps. Master Sausage works day and night to make string upon string of sausages, never able to sate their faceless employer. But one day, they’re sent an eager wide-eyed novice, who insists on asking the questions Master Sausage can’t bear to hear: Why are you here? Who were you before? What do you really want?
There’s a temptation to see this as a wider metaphor, particularly with Master Sausage’s idolisation of their monstrous meat grinder, and their self-inflicted incuriosity about those making the orders upstairs. But if you start doing that, it gets a bit too lofty and takes away from what’s simply a very good horror story.
Directors and performers Nic Lawton and Ezre Holland have clearly worked together a long time, perfectly in sync, both comedically and physically: As the audience files in, Lawton and Holland perform a sort of butchery ballet on repeat, slicing the meat open, cutting a chunk off, feeding it to the dreaded grinder, mushing in some other ingredients, stuffing it in to a casing, and passing it upstairs. This is repeated throughout, showing the physical labour of the job as well as its utter tedium, and it’s actually quite beautiful to watch.
Considering the only real prop is a metal bowl filled with pink silly putty, Butchered is exceedingly gory, and I find myself, sat on the front row, strenuously grimacing and trying to sit as far back on my pew as possible. As with all horror stories whose prime intent is to make you squirm, the story is a bit silly, but Lawton and Holland are skilled at bringing enough humour to make it self-aware, whilst also committing to the gothic grimness. There’s quite a bit of plot being only hinted at or so quickly explained I’m not sure I’ve got it all, and if it were any longer, I might require further narrative explanation. But at 50 minutes, it’s just right.
