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God of Carnage

God of Carnage State TheatrePresented by State Theatre Company of SA
Reviewed Tuesday 21st September 2010

http://www.statetheatrecompany.com.au/season/god-of-carnage

Venue: Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
Season: to Sunday 10th October, various days and times, see the BASS web site for details
Duration: 85min no interval
Tickets: adult $45/conc $40/under 30s $29
Bookings: BASS 131 241 or http://www.bass.net.au

Michael Hill is the director of this production of Yasmina Reza’s Tony and Olivier Award-winning play, translated by Christopher Hampton. Hill has assembled an evenly matched cast and fashioned a piece with plenty of pace and good levels of light and shade.

Lizzie Falkland and Kim Gyngell, as Annette and Alan Reille, and Caroline Mignone and Brant Eustice, as Veronica and Michael Vallon, play the two couples who have come together at the Vallon home, like rational adults, to calmly and sensibly discuss an altercation between their 11 year-old sons. Ferdinand Reille has hit Bruno Vallon with a stick, badly bruising his face and breaking two teeth. Alan is quite willing to pay for any medical bills, in an attempt to settle things quickly and allow him to leave, but Veronica feels that more is required and that Ferdinand should apologise to Bruno. She also wants the Reilles to administer some sort of punishment, to ensure that their son is fully aware of what he has done and to make sure that he is truly repentant when he apologises.

The action takes place in the Vallon’s stylish and obviously expensive Parisian apartment, an elegant piece of design by Morag Cook, well-lit by Susan Grey-Gardner. Irreplaceable books adorn the coffee table and other valuable objets d’art decorate the room.

Alan is a lawyer and although he is there in body he is most certainly not there in spirit. His mind is focussed on his work and continual interruptions by his mobile telephone, with calls from clients and colleagues discussing the suppression and denial of leaked information on the dangerous side-effects of a drug that they market, do nothing to help the situation. I am sure that every one of us knows at least one person whose life is ruled by the demands of their mobile telephone and can relate to the increasing frustration of his wife. Gyngell’s considerable experience, excellent comic timing and very believable characterisation made his interpretation of Alan something special, making him both hilarious and obnoxious at the same time.

His wife Annette is ‘all nerves’ and the escalating confrontation makes her physically ill. One moment she almost borders on obsequiousness in trying to keep things calm and please everybody, the next she is defensive and then she progresses to being downright angry. Falkland gives a fine performance, letting out the full extent of Annette’s personality a little at a time, slowly building a more complex picture of this repressed woman.

Michael gives the impression that he is detached and disinterested, but swings from an outward veneer of calm and reason to what he self-describes as a Neanderthal. Eustice traverses this range with ease, switching quickly from one aspect of Michael’s persona to another, one moment passing rum and cigars, the next discussing his youthful leadership of a gang. He conveys Michael’s multifaceted personality superbly in a rich performance.

Veronica wants to save the world, but cannot start by bringing peace to her marriage and her home. Initially she attempts to pacify and come to a mutually acceptable conclusion, but her emotions get the better of her and she becomes hysterical. Mignone completes the four terrific performances with a strong characterisation of the woman who thinks she knows where she is going, but eventually crumbles under pressure.

It is that equality of the four excellent performances, a tribute to Hill’s skill in casting, that makes this production work so well. This is certainly a contender for the title of State Theatre’s best play of the 2010 season, so far, and it definitely deserves good audiences.

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Lizzy Falkland, Brant Eustice, Caroline Mignone, Kim Gyngell -Photo by Matt Nettheim

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Kim Gyngell and Lizzy Falkland -Photo by Matt Nettheim

Reviewed by Barry Lenny, Arts Editor, Glam Adelaide.

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