A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF BLOOD.

A SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEM OF BLOOD. When we saw ROSE RAGE, the Chicago Shakespeare Company’s performance of the three HENRY VI plays, the plays were set in a Victorian butcher shop. Every time there was a violent death on stage, a butcher took a sword to either a head of cabbage or a slab of meat. The HENRY VI plays portray most of the War of the Roses, and there are a lot of violent deaths. Before we went, I had thought that the cabbages and slabs of meat were just a gimmick. I changed my mind. I decided that the effect was to avoid distractions. Without the quick and stylized and symbolic deaths, sword fighting would have dominated the plays. The butcher’s smocks reduced the cleanup problems. And the cleaver cutting through the cabbage or the slab of meat conveyed the horror of what was happening.