God of Carnage- Off Broadway

[jbm2]

Posted: 4/28/23 at 12:35am

Has anyone seen this revival?

[jbm2]

Posted: 4/29/23 at 9:19pm

Bump 

[uncageg]

Posted: 4/29/23 at 10:22pm

I have been wondering about this production. Almost bought a ticket but was waiting to see if anyone had seen it also.

[JoeW4]

Posted: 4/29/23 at 10:39pm

I saw an early preview, so hard for me to comment. They definitely needed some more time to find the pacing and dynamics. And while I didn't see the original (only the film adaptation, a long time ago), it seems to be that it's a play that pretty much lives or dies on how they can manage the rising tension. And when I saw it last weekend I don't think they were there yet.

I do wonder how much of that is the play itself though. On some level, it seems to me that Reza was trying achieve a similar descent into a chaos as Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but in half the runtime. So I'm not sure how earned it really is? But obviously the original production was really well-received, so that speaks for itself.

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 5/11/23 at 10:04pm

Just saw this tonight after not knowing really anything about it except the basic premise.  It was a little uneven for me and I agree it all seems to hinge on how well you manage the tension of the show.  The beginning seemed a little slow to me, like it's supposed to be awkward, but something about it just felt too stagnant.  Once the play got more into the swing of things I think it found its footing a bit better, though I probably enjoyed the script more than the direction.  Cristiane Noll was excellent with Gabe Fazio doing good work as well.  I mostly liked Carey Cox too, but something about David Burtka's performance didn't quite seem to sit well with the character.  I guess he's meant to be a bit stereotypical alpha male, but I wish there was just a touch more subtlety, and the smile he held throughout most of the show just wasn't quite working for me, though I did like him near the end after the meltdown happens.

Some of the shifts in mood felt a bit abrupt and unearned, but I guess it's mostly a "go along for the ride" kind of play anyways.  I did think it was pretty interesting just watching this group of people interact together and the constant changes in "alliances" they had along the way, but some of the characters just didn't feel as fully lived in as others, though I'm not sure if that's down to the script, the actors, or the direction.

I always like seeing open caption performances, so I really appreciate what this theater company is doing, but sometimes the captions were so far above the actors' heads that it felt distracting and it wasn't easy to watch both at the same time (I imagine front row to be particularly terrible for this).  And sometimes they were delayed for a couple of seconds, so it was tough to keep up if you actually wanted to read the captions.  They start off the play introducing each of the characters and what they look like as well as what they're wearing and what the set looks like, which I thought was generally well done in terms of keeping in character, but also didn't really add much momentum to the play and it never felt like we understood why Alan and Annette were taking part in this exercise.

Overall I liked it but didn't love it, though I'd be curious of seeing other productions of this in the future.