Review: Debt Meat, Drayton Arms Theatre

A world where human meat is the only form of currency? The premise of Debt Meat sent a shiver down my spine, implying a dark and dystopian setting and a bold political allegory. On that count, Debt Meat did not disappoint.

The detailed setting up of the world is quickly and effectively introduced, with a touch of dark humour. The Royal Mint has been renamed the Royal Mince, and people who fall into debt are turned into currency. The horrendous aspects of this are made clear early on. Characters engage in theft, threats and self-harm to pay their debts. The latter is one of the play’s most intense and gruesome scenes.

The plot of Debt Meat follows two sisters who have recently moved house after an implied tragedy. When the younger one falls into debt, her older sister turns to stripping and then self-mutilation to save her from a trip to the Royal Mince.

The atmosphere is strong from the beginning, as the threat of being turned into currency looms over the characters. However, this tension is undermined by a surprise early intermission in a short fringe show, and it did not return to its previous heights in the second half. 

Debt Meat raises questions about politics and economics. Inequality and the suffering of the poor are made vivid in a world where debt can quickly become death. Human labour, through our bodies, is the driving force of the economy, and thus, turning flesh into currency makes the abstract nature of work more apparent.

The narrative is not just about the day-to-day struggle to stay alive in this world. There is an administrative side to the violence, which makes it more chilling.  Bureaucracy legitimises the pain and separates those who order acts of cruelty from their victims. This raises interesting themes about the banality of evil; however, basing a significant amount of the time in the latter parts of the play to explore whether one character signed the “exit form” lacked the emotional impact of the earlier scenes. There is absurdity to this plot development, and the entire world of Debt Meat, which is reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s ‘Brazil’, where bureaucracy legitimising violence is taken to comical and satirical extremes. Debt Meat’s set and costume are consciously retro, like ‘Brazil,’ which added to the uncanny feel. 

But the absurdity is underplayed. I am not sure how seriously the audience is supposed to take this argument over paperwork. It certainly was not satirical or absurd enough to suit the disturbing tone. If this was a reference to the absurd streak that runs through authoritarian state violence and a satire of our economic system, then it was not apparent enough. 

Both ‘Brazil’ and Debt Meat also have echoes of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ – state violence is a constant fear for the characters.  There were other parallels, as individual characters are key parts of the system of oppression. Oppression is based on human betrayals as well as the crushing authority of a faceless bureaucracy, which rooted the drama in interpersonal conflicts between characters, an ideal form of drama for the stage.

Debt Meat has a lot of strong ideas that were interesting to discuss in the pub afterwards; however, as a piece of dramatic fiction, it needs to be more tense and have a more consistent tone. Because when the drama worked, it worked really well, creating an uncanny, unsettling tension.

Written & Directed by Benji Edward

Debt Meat has completed its run at The Drayton Arms Theatre