Playwright Hannah Doran spoke to David Hennessy about her award- winning play The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights before it comes to Park Theatre this week.
Hannah Doran’s The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights is coming to London’s Park Theatre for its world premiere.
Hannah grew up between England and Ireland and The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Height is her debut play.
It also won her the 2024 Papatango New Writing Prize.
Hannah studied in the America at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her work has been developed and workshopped in US, UK and Australia. She was selected for the National MFA Playwrights’ Festival in 2017 with her short play A Last Night on Earth, which was produced by Theater Masters in Aspen, Colorado, and subsequently Off-Off-Broadway at Theater for the New City.
Now based in London, she is part of the National Theatre’s script reading team.
The Meat Kings! was chosen from a record-breaking 1,589 submissions for the Papatango Prize — the UK’s only playwriting award that guarantees its winner a full production, publication, royalties and a new commission.
The 2024 Prize includes this 5-week run in Park200 at Park Theatre, publication by Nick Hern Books, a royalty of 8% of the box office, and a £7,500 commission with full developmental support.
The play is set in a Brooklyn butcher’s shop and slices into questions of identity, immigration and survival in pursuit of the American Dream.
Artistic Director of Papatango George Turvey directs the cast of Jackie Clune, Marcello Cruz, Ash Hunter, Mithra Malek and Eugene McCoy.
In the story T (Mithra Malek) is the new summer hire at Cafarelli & Sons, an iconic New York butcher.
No-nonsense boss Paula (Jackie Clune) tries to keep everyone in line but the business is struggling: When the season ends, someone’s for the chop.
With the American Dream of a better life hanging in the balance, JD (Marcello Cruz) and Billy (Ash Hunter) find themselves pitted against each other, each determined to secure a future. Around them, David (Eugene McCoy) and T are drawn into shifting alliances and fractured loyalties. But how far will they go to survive?
The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights carves into America’s anti-immigration policies and the brutal sacrifices that drive the pursuit of prosperity.
Hannah chatted to the Irish World ahead of the play going into rehearsals.
What inspired The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights?
“I started working at a butcher’s in Brooklyn back before the pandemic.
“It was a wild environment to be in and I felt really out of my depth but I remember the first day thinking, ‘No matter what happens here, however long I last, it’s going to make a good story’.
“And then I started putting pen to paper during lockdown and I’ve been developing it for about five years.”
So it is based on your personal experience. Did the play’s themes like immigration and identity crop up in your time at that Brooklyn butcher’s?
“It was during Trump’s first presidency and the people in that workplace were mostly men of colour raised in Brooklyn, Queens, a lot of black and Latino people.
“We wouldn’t ask each other about those kind of things or about our immigration status or anything like that, but it was always an undercurrent.
“The events of the play are not necessarily based on real things that happened in my workplace but certainly all about the broader cultural moment that we’re seeing again now during Trump’s second presidency.”
Although you have chosen the specific setting of the butcher shop, could it be any workplace anywhere in the states? It seems like America is very fractious at the moment and kind of on a knife edge..
“Yeah, I think we’re seeing a lot of that coming to the fore now with immigration dialogue in the US but New York is such a melting pot of people from different places and different backgrounds that it felt really pertinent there especially.”
Of course London is another melting pot and the issue of immigration is coming up a lot here also..
“Yeah, it’s very current now and what we’re seeing in the UK with the St. George’s flag going up everywhere and what that really means, I think it can feel quite threatening and intimidating.
“And part of what the play looks at is about how the face of immigration in the US has changed over time and what it means, how privilege changes, how all those things change when you’re a first generation immigrant, a second generation, third generation and those are all things I think we’re talking about more nowadays.”
Your family came from Ireland and I’m sure they weren’t made terrifically welcome. Now the Irish are very much accepted but now a whole new wave of immigrants are sometimes demonised..
“Yeah, I think there was huge waves of immigration from Ireland and now we’re seeing influx from different countries.
“There’s a lot to unpack but it’s really interesting.”
Tell us about your Irish heritage. You were born here but to a family from Ireland..
“Yeah, I’m born here, sound very English and feel very Irish, as I always say.
“I was raised sort of between Hampshire and West Cork really.
“I went to school here and would be back over there with the family every holiday, every chance we got.
“So I feel a bit like a product of both places.
“My grandparents emigrated to England.
“They’re from the Midlands, Meath and Longford and then I spent big chunks of my childhood over in Cork.
“That’s where my family have their home and I still spend a lot of time there.
“I escape to West Cork from London every chance I get.
“But I think it’s interesting with immigrant identity, and it’s different for everyone.
“The first generations there’s a pressure to assimilate and then there’s a freedom for the later generations to find their own sense of connection to their ancestry or their cultural background and that’s where I’m at.”
Hannah has family in places like Moate, Mullingar, Leitrim and Dublin.
Did you reflect on the experiences of your family members when they came to this country in writing the play?
“I think it’s more that that just lives as part of my sense of self.
“I was hearing stories about how they came over and had to really work their way up.
“They worked as nurses for the NHS for their whole careers.
“But when they first came to England, granddad worked on the buses.
“He couldn’t really get a foot in the door in his career so they had to really work to be welcomed into British culture and that’s part of the themes of the play for sure.
“So I think it inspires me kind of more broadly just in my sense of the world.”
Does the New York Irish experience come up in the play?
“Yeah, there’s a character who’s mixed race.
“He’s part Irish- American.
“And again, that’s part of looking at what it means when people who aren’t first generation immigrants, what privilege means, what the American dream means for them versus what it might mean for someone who’s a first generation immigrant from a different background and how those things kind of intersect and come into play.
“The characters are all from different immigrant backgrounds and that’s part of what the play’s about.”
You speak about the American dream. I wonder if that changes over time and becomes different to someone who has lived in the country a few years as opposed to when they were fresh in the country..
“Yeah, I think so.
“I think it means something different to everyone which, in theory, is the beauty of that ideal and actually becomes the thing that causes it to fail for a lot of people or makes it become transparent.”
Was that your experience as someone who lived, studied and worked in America? Did the dream change?
“Yeah, I think I was 21 when I went to the US and I was going there to study and in search of a dream, to learn how to be a writer and it is an incredible country with incredible people and so much to offer.
“But the things that I felt let me down were health insurance, that kind of thing and feeling actually there’s all these barriers to success often which are financial.
“There are so many ways that you can feel punished as an immigrant and the bureaucracy of paperwork and trying to get your visa sorted, all of those things.
“So it’s, in theory, the land of the free and actually, once you’re there and there’s no health service, there’s no socialised healthcare, you really find yourself coming up against it.
“That was what it was like for me.
“But I loved the US and I loved being in New York.
“It was an amazing place to be.”
Blame gets put on immigrants for a lot of things. I was wondering is that a theme of play? Or perhaps how different immigrants get pitted against each other?
“Yeah, I think that’s definitely one of the core themes of the play: That ‘pull the ladder up’ syndrome.
“Actually there’s no sense of blame in it.
“The characters are five people who are struggling to survive or to make it in different ways.
“That means something different to each of them but in order to succeed or in order to live, it’s like fighting tooth and nail.
“Unfortunately the people at the bottom of society or the bottom of the food chain, who often are immigrants or newcomers or just people who are disenfranchised in some way, are the characters in the play and they’re pitted against each other to try and survive and try and be the one that makes it.”
Rehearsals have not yet started but have you sat in on early read throughs and things like that to see how the cast are taking to it?
“We’ve had a year of development on the play with me and George, who’s the director and the artistic director of Papatango.
“We had a reading a few months ago that I was sat in on.
“It was really helpful.
“I’ve been in some of the audition process as well so I feel like I’ve been really, really present and I’ll be in rehearsals as well.”
I am interested to know if you found, in auditions and read throughs etc, there were very few questions reflecting how well understood these issues are at the moment?
“Yeah, I think a lot of the commentary and the questions from actors especially has shown how pertinent the play’s themes are.
“If there’s anything to be said for Trump being re-elected, it’s that the play has once again become relevant.
“I started writing it during the first Presidency, then we had the Biden presidency and then now there’s a lot in the play that’s gained a new kind of fire as we see the (second) Trump presidency play out.
“It feels really, really relevant and hopefully will feel so to UK audiences as well.”
On Wednesday 19 November Park Theatre will host a post show discussion with Brad Blitz (Professor of International Politics and Policy, UCL), Fionna Smyth (Director of Campaigns, Policy and Programmes, War on Want), Marcello Cruz from the cast and Hannah herself.
It is going to be really interesting to see what those people really make of it, isn’t it?
“Yeah, be really curious to see.
“It’s difficult because as a white Irish/ Brit, there’s so much that I don’t know.
“I can’t comment on certain experiences of people in the US but I’ve got my experience and the experiences of those people around me who have had some struggles.
“I think we can see a lot of things happening in the news with social media.
“We’ve got access to so much and I’m excited to see what those experts have to say.
“We’ve got some very knowledgeable people coming in to answer some questions so hopefully whatever I don’t know, they will know.”
So is it fair to say that in this play you are presenting more of the questions than seeking to offer answers?
“Yeah, I think it’s often a thing when you sit down to write a play you think, ‘What questions is the play asking?’ Or, ‘What question is it trying to answer?’
“And I definitely think it’s provoking questions rather than answering them and I’ll be interested to see what the audience response is like.
“I think it’s the kind of story that, depending on your own personal background, people might have really different responses to it.
“Hopefully not too divisive but I’d be really curious to see.”
Is it humanising these people that are often not presented as such but rather statistics or an ‘issue’?
“Yeah, I think we get a lot of buzz words in the news and in the papers and hopefully that puts some human faces to things that otherwise just are kind of issues or just words that linger at the back of someone’s mind.
“But the five characters are all really different and have had really different experiences and I think success means something different to each of them and I think who we back at different points in the play really can change and it will be interesting to see what people make of it.”
Could the setting easily be changed from America to Britain as the issues are so relevant here also?
“I think there’s a relevance to it in the UK but there’s a real specificity to the setting of Brooklyn, of New York, of the US and of the butcher’s that I think means it couldn’t really be set anywhere else and I think that’s part of what will hopefully make it resonant and make it work.
“But I don’t think the setting of it means that it’s inaccessible to people from other places. I hope not.
“Hopefully there’s ways in to that world for an audience even if it’s foreign to them.”
This is an award- winning play and I didn’t even bring it up until now. What did it mean to win the 2024 Papatango New Writing Prize?
“It was huge.
“I’ve been writing for about a decade and I’ve submitted to that prize and some of the other prizes year in and year out.
“It feels like it’s been a long time coming but it was amazing to get that phone call and to feel like the story would find its audience.
“The support from Papatango and from Park for the last year has been really amazing.
“It’s a difficult time for the industry and for writers.
“It’s difficult to get work made right now.
“A lot of theatres are not taking risks and so this just feels really lucky to have a show going on off West End at a pretty exciting venue to have a debut as well.”
Would it be your dream to take this play to New York since it was conceived there and has such a New York setting?
“Yeah, it really feels like a New York play at heart and I would love to think it might get another life across the pond.
“It’s just a question of how that happens, and hopefully it will make its way over there at some point.
“I think it would be really interesting to see how it went down there compared to here.
“That can be the dream, for sure.”
The Meat Kings! (Inc.) of Brooklyn Heights is at Park Theatre 30 October- 29 November.
For more information and to book, click here.