Shakespeare's three-part Henry VI is a chronicle of ambition, intrigue and bloodshed. But Edward Hall, director of the production — subtitled Rose Rage — at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, chose for his conceptual metaphor a slaughterhouse. And so, although at no time during the course of the six-hour play, are blades and bodies less than six feet apart, at every performance two red cabbages representing the heads of condemned prisoners are shattered with one mighty sweep of the executioner's axe, and twenty pounds of raw organ meats are sliced, chopped and mutilated beyond recognition by a menacing chorus of cutlery-wielding chefs.
Physically, these dissections are no more brutal than those enacted in kitchens all over America, but the dramatic impact of culinary violence, when transferred in our imaginations to human conflicts, is undeniable. This particular brand of food fighting, however, presents additional challenges for backstage personnel assigned to the storage and operation of these properties.
Where does one procure groceries in the volume required for the long-running show? Where, in a facility unequipped for any cooking beyond coffee in the dressing-room, does one keep such perishable products? And what additional sanitation and hygiene measures must be implemented to deal with this peculiar situation?
We learned, after several calls to butcher shops, that not all of them handle innards, or even do their own slaughtering on the premises." says CST production manager Jennifer Smith, "So we turned to wholesale meat distributors, who quickly referred us to the company that is now our production's supplier. Since the meat is not for consumption, most of the health codes associated with food handling don't apply to us. We also provided the slaughterhouse with a written notice that we were using their meat for prop purposes only."
Next came the task of finding a secure repository for what could, if not watched carefully, soon resemble unburied corpses in more than looks alone. As property manager Dan Nurczyk observes, "Blood is blood, whether animal or human. We talked about where would be the safest place to store and prepare the meat. (The play's action includes several scenes of slain enemies left to rot, replicated by meat packed into plastic bags and hung from scaffolds.] It had to be both far away from people, but still close enough to the stage to access at all times."
When the show was preparing for its Chicago run, Peter Hall asked for five pounds of meat. Smith and Nurczyk brought him ten as a sample. "It's great!" he said, "But we're going to need more." So now, after the meat is picked up every week and trucked to the theater, it is moved to its own food service-sized refrigeration unit located below the stage. ("I carry 100 pounds of meat and vegetables through a trap-door and down a spiral staircase every week." Nurczyk remarks wryly, while Smith shrugs, "Out of sight, out of mind.")
How did the actors respond to the news that they were going to play with pig's guts? "Well, I wasn't around when they were told," Dan observes, "But I know they were all told before they auditioned."
"The knives are primarily sound effects." Smith adds by way of reassurance, "The blades have all been dulled, so the actors aren't actually trying to carve anything. I was first asked to provide lungs, hearts and intestines. The lungs look good on the cutting tables. And the hearts are very important because there is a part in the show where a heart is supposed to be ripped from a body. But we take whatever we can get."
"Livers make a better sound when the cleavers strike the cutting board." adds Nurczyk, "There is also a moment in the show when an actor picks up some meat and slams it to the floor. This actor asked us for intestines — for the sound, and for the reaction it gets from the audience."
Slightly more difficult is the scene where an actor must eat a morsel picked from a skilletful of sizzling stir-fry. "Wouldn't you know that the only actor who has to eat the meat onstage would be a vegetarian!" sighs Nurczyk, "What you see in the frying pan is heart — it's easy to cut, and it doesn't smell when it's cooked onstage — except for a little piece of seitan kept aside in a place where the actor can reach it easily. A little sleight-of-hand and he's got the fake meat."
Fletcher McTaggert, the actor in question, is unfazed. "At first it grossed me out a little bit. But by now it's just a prop — though there are some days when it smells terrible."
The recent Sanitation Workers strike made for inconveniences in other parts of the city, but not for CST, which has its own private disposal service. "We're being smart." Smith reports, "The minute there is any sign that the meat even might be turning, out it goes. We wanted to make sure there was no possibility of the meat sitting out overnight."
Nurczyk affirms this, "We have wash rags, disinfectant hand-cream and hand wipes everywhere. We, ourselves, always wear gloves, and I clean everything the meat touches — cleavers, cutting boards, knives, pans — with bleach, because it disinfects on contact. Everyone backstage makes the actors feel as comfortable with their tasks as possible. And Peter says he likes how the bleach perfumes the auditorium."
Had Nurczyk and Smith's previous training prepared them for this experience? "Coming from a performance-art background, I was ready for just about anything." Nurczyk declares, "When we did Julius Caesar, it got kind of messy. The actors even got blood on the audience — fake blood, not like we have here. The actors are very professional about their jobs, but sometimes they will hear gasps or groans from the audience. Overall, this isn't really all that much different from any show where you use real food."
On the opening night of the play, performed in two parts with a dinner break in between, a rumor circulated among audiences members that the box suppers had originally included a rare-roast beef option, but that the caterers had re-thought their decision after seeing the show. "I have heard no such stories," says Nurczyk, " But considering that the stage is covered in cabbage just before the dinner interval, I think it's funny that the salad in the vegetarian lunch has red cabbage in it."
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