As I’d been heavily involved in the advertising for The Massacre, I headed down to Bury St Edmunds last night for its European Premiere at the Theatre Royal. Following a small glass of vin rouge in the bar, I took my seat for the performance.

And what a performance it was.

As you’ve probably guessed from its title, The Massacre is no happy-go-lightly jaunt around the old oak tree. It’s intense, challenging and traumatic. Hairspray it ain’t.

The play is set in the midst of a revolution and begins with a wife anxiously awaiting the return of her husband. She is consoled by his father – who’s trying to be strong – but they swiftly receive news of a bloodshed in the city. Although presumed dead, the husband eventually returns, bloodstained and traumatised, and recounts the massacre he’s witnessed.

More bad news follows. The mob responsible for the massacre are not satisfied by the carnage caused in the city, and are making their way into the towns and villages thirsty for more victims. The family plan to flee, but their house is surrounded by the mob before they can complete their rushed exit.

The father, a learned and respected man, decides to protect what’s left of his family and ushers them into another room in the house. He calmly waits for the mob, and when they arrive gives himself up in the hope he can protect is family by doing so.

The son, however, cannot watch his father be taken by these thugs, and bursts into the room – a brave but ultimately stupid manoeuvre because he endangers his whole family. Nevertheless, he convinces the thugs that his wife is merely a guest at the house, and persuades them to let her go. They seemingly oblige, and escort husband and father to court.

In the courtroom, husband and father face the judge. The mob leader explains their crimes – “they think differently to us”. We expect them to be condemned to death, but the judge has other ideas. Instead, he has requested they be captured so he can protect them from the mob. He blasts the mob leader for his jingoistic ways and orders that the family be protected.

If you were expecting a happy ending, look away now. A guard arrives in the courtroom to inform the party that they’ve recovered the body of a woman and her two infant children. The bodies are carried into the courtroom and revealed as the wife and her children.

* * *

Written by Elizabeth Inchbald in 1792 as a reaction to the bloody events in Paris at the time of the French Revolution, The Massacre was too considered “too horrid” by its author and never performed in her lifetime.

In his programme notes, The Massacre’s Director, Colin Blumenau, describes it as

… a play about chauvanism, about corruption, about sectarianism, about ‘otherness’, all from the perspective of being part of a society against who the Establishment discriminated – the female part. No wonder she thought better of blazoning her views. Yet what a pity she didn’t, for, if she had done, perhaps change for the better might have been precipitated earlier.

Whilst the play is intensely political, it is also a very human story and I really hope that our production manages to balance the two interests. I hope that the human tragedy doesn’t mask the politics nor the politics alienate you to the humanity.

The Theatre Royal’s production of The Massacre is quite brilliant. The casting is remarkably brave and eerily prescient – the mob leader’s thick Northern Irish accent instantly brought some very recent events to mind. The setting could have been any one of the (too many) war torn countries in the Middle East. And the final scene of the husband crying over his dead wife could’ve been lifted straight from BBC News.

Powerful stuff, then. And perhaps the real irony is that the message of a play written over two hundred years ago has never been quite so relevant.

Well done to all involved.

The Massacre runs until Saturday 27th June at Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds.

Blog Post written by Erika Clegg