MeiJade Hsu

10/17/14
Blue Group
Quarter 1 Live Play Review: God of Carnage
Watched: Sunday, October 5, 2014; title, author, and theatre included in review
God of Carnage is a black comedy that reminds the audience that even fully-grown adults can
still act like children at times. The play was originally written in French in 2006 by the French playwright
Yasmina Reza and translated into English in 2008 by Christopher Hampton, and takes place in Brooklyn,
New York. Before the play begins, an 11-year-old boy, Henry, knocks out the two front teeth of another
boy, Benjamin, with a stick because Benjamin had refused to let Henry join his gang. That evening,
Henrys parents, Alan (Andrew Greenleaf), a lawyer who is never off his cell phone, and Annette (Lauren
Kieler), who is in wealth-management, meet with Benjamins parents, Michael (Bob Harbaum), a selfmade wholesaler, and Veronica (Alyssa Sanders), an unwell writer who is currently writing a book about
Darfur, at Benjamins parents house to discuss their sons violent behaviors toward each other at the
playground. The meeting is at first civil, but as the evening wears on and the rum flows, the adults begin
disagreeing with each other on topics that range from misogyny to homophobia. Alans phone
continually rings and interrupts the meeting, enraging and disgusting Annette so much to the point that
at one point she vomits all over Veronicas coffee table and books and then shoves Alans cell phone
into Veronicas flower vase. In the end, the parents have not come to a general consensus on what to do
about their sons behaviors and matters stand at a much worse status than they were at the beginning.
Silver Spring Stages adaption of God of Carnage was highly successful, as I could really feel the
escalating tensions and stakes unfolding onstage. Bob Harbaum (Michael) was particularly memorable
as the self-made but somewhat lower-class wholesaler husband of the overly belligerent, sensitive
Veronica. He stayed in this physicality all throughout the performance, whether he was screaming at his
wife, pouring out rum for the other three adults, or answering phone calls from his hospitalized mother.
I feel he did the best out of the four actors in the play. Andrew Greenleaf was also memorable as the
business-obsessed, down-to-earth and perpetually unimpressed and unconcerned lawyer Alan. Annette

continually criticizes him throughout the play for his lack of concern for anything that is not occurring
over his cell phone, but it is very apparent that this is the case even without Annettes criticisms. Like
Harbaum, Greenleaf stays in his physicality throughout the play no matter what his character undergoes
and experiences. I could clearly tell that Alan did not want to be at the meeting and regretted listening
to his wife about going. In fact, I could tell that both Michael and Alan were present at the meeting only
because their wives had forced them to be there. Only the two women actually cared about resolving
the dispute between their sons. All four actors portrayed the theme of adults behaving like children very
proficiently, as all the fighting and squabbling did resemble fights between children.
Music/sound effects were only present before and after the play, but that is because the play
solely takes place in Michael and Veronicas living-room, and music and sound effects would not be fully
appropriate in that situation. The set, designed and constructed by Adam R. Adkins and Bob Scott, was
simple but yet incorporated everything that was needed for the play to run smoothly, coffee table, wine
cabinet, telephone and all. The costumes, designed by the actors themselves, effectively established
character physicality by casting Alan and Annette as upper middle-class professionals and Michael and
Veronica as somewhat lower in socioeconomic status but still comfortably off. The lighting, designed by
Nathaniel Collard, was very effective in establishing the mood of the play, as the lights changed from a
tranquil, light golden-orange in the beginning to a dangerous blood-red at the end. The two sofas where
much of the action took place were placed in the middle of the stage/living-room, with the wine pantry
in the back and the entrance to the kitchen next to it. I applaud director Adam R. Adkins and the cast for
staying on the sofas and not forcing themselves to move much around the stage during the early, lowtension/stakes scenes. The gradual transition from almost no movement to constant movement around
the stage very effectively reflects the dramatically changing mood, tensions, and stakes of the play and
also accommodates the theme the parents change from being calmly seated, civilized, mature adults
in the early scenes to wild, hopelessly hyper/intoxicated, fighting children in the later scenes.