God of Carnage made me uncomfortable, but in a good way. It was like a well-orchestrated trainwreck taking place right before my eyes, and truly lived up to the carnage the title suggests.
The premise of the play is simple: two couples sit down to discuss a fight that happened between their children. The discussion starts out cordially, but soon devolves into a complete mess. By the end of the play, everyone is either drunk, pissed off, or lamenting the loss of their cell phone.
And when I say complete mess I mean complete mess. No racial or homophobic slur is off-limits. Sexist remarks? Go for it. An angry rant about a family pet? Absolutely.
Given the nature of the play’s content, a poor cast could have really tanked the show. But the cast of Megan Harvey, Lindsay Tannahill, Matthew Venner, and Kosta Diochnos were more than up to the challenge, and infused the emotionally-charged scenes with the heft they needed.
The four of them took us on an emotional rollercoaster. Tannahill as Veronica conveyed a great deal of emotional range over the show, going from calm and articulate at the beginning to physically attacking her husband Michael (Diochnos) closer to the end. Harvey’s drunken escapades near the end were a highlight, along with Diochnos’ whimsical recounting of gang fights when he was younger.
The most impressive was Venner as Alan Raleigh, a cold, pessimistic attorney. Venner’s command of his character’s piercing cynicism was very strong, and even when taking one of his roughly a dozen work calls, he had an icy coolness that made his lines stick.
As an ensemble, the cast did a great job creating an atmosphere of tension and awkwardness. It wasn’t hard to think these were four people that really didn’t want to be there. Every pleasantry seemed forced, every compliment seemed hollow.
The realness of the play was also striking. It’s visceral, relentless, and really works in how it bares all the characters’ flaws for us to see. Even at its most absurd, there was still a tinge of truth in this mess.
In an earlier interview with The Charlatan, director Casey Beynon mentioned the relatability of the characters, and that’s a big part of what I thought made this play so effective. It’s not hard to see pieces of yourself in the chaos ensuing on stage. You don’t want to, yet you can’t look away.
There was no resolution in the end, no moment of pathos. No group hug where everyone solves their problems and walks away happy. The bitterness of all the fighting lingers long after the final curtain call.
So what were we left with? A snapshot of two marriages deteriorating? Philosophical ruminations on human nature? Honestly, there were no easy answers, and part of what made the play successful is how it didn’t try to answer those questions. We’re only left reeling with what we’ve just seen on-stage, and that feeling doesn’t go away. It’s as though Beynon and her cast held up a giant mirror in front of the audience, exposing the madness inside all of us.
– Photo is provided
