“Meat is Murder” say the placards that vegetarian protesters brandish outside an abattoir in Wales in this play, which is not just about the killing of animals to feed us. Blood on Your Hands is also about the workers inside and their lives, in particular Dan, born and bred locally, who messed his life up when young and can’t get other employment, and Konstyantyn, an economic migrant from Ukraine who was a vet there but is now killing animals rather than looking after them though he has told Nina, the pregnant wife he had to leave behind, that he got a job in a vet practice.
On Konstyantyn’s first day at the abattoir, he is befriended by Dan who still lives with his parents and seems full of chat and happy to spend time down the pub but, as played by Philip John Jones, we see Dan increasingly disturbed by his situation, exploited at work by his boss (Jordan El-Balawi), harassed by his girlfriend Eden (Liv Jekyll), who has joined the protesters, and made to feel he is wasting his life when a former school bully (El-Balawi again) drops by who is now coining it in advertising in London.
Shannon Smith makes a very likeable Kostyantyn, easily gaining sympathy, especially when we see the overcrowded conditions in which he is living. He thought he was starting a new life and that his wife Nina (Kateryna Hryhorenko) and child would soon be able to join him. Meanwhile, Russia is moving troops and armaments up to the border; the now current conflict is about to begin.
These are people in turmoil, just like the wider world, though Grace Joy Howarth’s script doesn’t develop that metaphor but broadly sketches the men’s situation with flashbacks to the days when Eden was happy to order hamburger or fried chicken takeaways and when Kostyantyn shared the joy of their first baby with Nina. Movement director Tessa Guerrero effectively stages a stylized but graphic scene of animal slaughter that leaves the stage running with blood. Nina is shown at her household chores mopping up the slaughterhouse gore that its workers missed as though sweeping away the lies with with which her husband tries to make things look rosy.
Director Anastasia Bruce makes the transitions from naturalistic to stylised scenes work, helped by Ahmet Buyukchar’s setting, and Alex Powell’s video and The Araby Bazaar’s sound design energise the protests, but oddly, the pub the men drink in seems to fill their glasses only half full and the play too seems to have something missing.
Blood On Your Hands takes on too much to handle in just 90 minutes, but at the same time doesn’t give enough detail.