Horrible fun in Slaughter-house live
THEATRE
Welcome to Slaughter
11.47 Productions
4 STARS
Blue Room Theatre
REVIEW DAVID ZAMPATTI
Welcome to Slaughter is a rom-horredy. It's certainly not a rom-com (no happiness-ever- after to be had here) but it's not slasher, snuff or any of the other forms of horror either.
You could say it's "a treatment of the disintegration of a romantic relationship by means of the allegorical personification of destructive thoughts, with strong elements of horror and comedy", but that's a bit old school, and too long to fit on a poster. So rom-horredy it is.
Fawn (Jo Morris) and Olive (Michelle Robin Anderson, who also directs) are driving a beat-up old jalopy down dark country roads. They're twiddling the dials on the radio, Fawn singing along (badly) to some Carol King, Love is in the Air, Ch-ch-ch-changes, Psycho Killer. She plays I Spy; Olive fiddles with a Rubik's Cube.
They're a couple, of nine years standing, and they're not getting anywhere. This endless monotony is their life together.
There's Something (Emily Rose Brennan) just visible in the back seat. Its claws scrape Olive's neck. Its nasty voice hisses in her ear. They pull over for a pit stop and the creature works both the girls over, putting thoughts in their heads, tearing them apart.
The car won't start. The critter bares her fangs. But why are we all laughing so much?
Anderson, Morris, Brennan and co-director and lighting designer, the ineffable Joe Lui, working with a sharp text by Jeffrey Jay Fowler, pull off quite a balancing act here.
It's not easy to be scary on a small stage, without camera angles or other cinematic devices, but they do it very well (credit also to set and sound designers Shaye Preston and Brett Smith). And to then make us laugh (at it, at ourselves) is quite an achievement.
When Fawn goes to work on the monster with a shovel (there is some tactfully staged splatter for the fans) there isn't a wet eye in the house.
But, then again, we all know the beast that besets them won't be disposed of so easily - at least not in a show as crafty and audacious as this.
Welcome to Slaughter runs until October 25.
