God of Carnage

‘God of Carnage’ is a 90-minute French play by Yasmina Reza, beautifully translated by Christopher Hampton. It is presented by The Black Swan State Theatre Company, in a co-production with the Queensland Theatre Company. In 2009, ‘God of Carnage’ was given the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. This production, which comes straight from a run in Queensland, is showing at 7.30 nightly at the Playhouse Theatre, 3 Pier Street, until 28^th June.

           Two 11-year-old Parisian boys, Ferdinand and Bruno, were playing in the local park when Ferdinand shattered a couple of Bruno's teeth. Bruno's shopkeeper father, Michael (Benj D’Addario) and his wife, Veronica (Veronica Neave) - who writes books about the poverty in Sudan - have invited the attacker’s parents around for coffee and homemade clafoutis to discuss the situation. When Ferdinand's parents arrive, they find to their horror that the father, Alan (Andrew Buchanan) is highflying solicitor and his wife, Annette (Jodie Buzza), a financial planner.

           Veronica thinks that the best way to get a good recompense for their ‘violated’ son’s injury is to ingratiate herself in a sickly Uriah Heep-like approach. Similarly, Annette is charming, but strongly defensive of her son. The husbands? Well they don’t really want to be there anyway.

           It soon becomes apparent that the smooth approach is not going to work. Just when a solution appears to be taking place, yet another side comment by one of the parents throws the whole situation into havoc again. When the pressure is turned up, allegiances change, attitudes alter, Annette develops a nervous stomach and the parents behave much worse than their boys ever did.

The character names have been Anglicized in this production.
QTC’s Artistic Director, Michael Gow is the play’s director. He keeps the pace sizzling along, with clever lateral thinking gets raucous laughs from every situations. The acting ranges from serious drama to almost slapstick – just like Barry Humphries shows, do not sit in the front two rows!
The cast were magnificent as they flowed faultlessly from one mood to another, with expressions that told all.

The simple set (designer Robert Kemp) carried through the French theme with fleurs de lis over the walls. The acting area was an island surrounded by hundreds of bin bags, probably representing the rubbish that the two groups of parents spouted forth.
Bernie Tan-Hayes’ lighting was simple but effective, with the brightness and tone changing to keep the audience interested and to stop their eyes from bleaching out. However, I found that the operator was a little quick on the faders and thus the changes were sometimes very noticeable.
A great script, very well presented. Extremely funny.The audience loved it.