Unicorn "God of Carnage" review by LindsayAdams

'God of Carnage' rules at the Unicorn

Rating: 5

God of Carnage

Unicorn Theatre

God of Carnage shows how quickly well-intentioned parents turn into prehistoric beasts concerning anything regarding their children. They become infantile, their faces writhing and contorting into distorted pouting.

A tensely polite meeting between two couples whose children got into a fight goes from having an unsettling undercurrent to sheer madness.

The couples quickly become combatants in some strange fight they are waging with themselves and the others. Their judgment of each other quickly is reversed inwards as the couples fall to infighting and evaluating their partner. All mental walls are quickly pulled down and the characters are left stripped of their humanity, as we see them ugly and flawed, yet somehow more human.

The show began with a dumb show with the four actors mimicking the arriving and introductions in slow motion, to flashing lights and electric guitar riff from a Radiohead song. The director Mark Robbins was inspired with the vision for the opening after seeing Radiohead perform on TV. The stage went black.

It light up again for the briefest of moments to show the four freezing in harsh, grotesque positions of anger, before blacking out again.

Then, the action of the play starts in regular time, with the two couples talking.

>From that moment on the characters facades break both violently and hilariously. They tear into eachother stooping to the most immature and juvenile of insults. The audience watches the carnage grow and is entertained. There is much inappropriate purging of emotion and unleashing of previously restrained anger, among two couples that hitherto were complete strangers.

There is a constant ebb and flow of tension. The subtle shifts in control over the situation are one of the most dynamic, enthralling things in the show.

The fighting is punctuated by visceral attacks, both physical and emotional that leave debris of emotions, puke, and tulips scattered around the tastefully decorated living room.

The play is well suited to the Unicorn's snug theater setting. The Producing Artistic Director of the Unicorn Theatre Cynthia Levin called "God of Carnage", "a very intimate play".

Annette Raleigh played by Melinda McCrary is a hyper neurotic woman who stalks around the room like a barely contained bird of prey who is so eager to please that she allows herself to be stepped on.

She and her husband Alan Raleigh played by John Resenhouse, who is a slightly crass, tasteless workaholic, are seemingly the most dysfunctional of the two at the beginning of the play. They are distant, unable to communicate and are not very connected to their child. Every time one of the characters asks an important question or is about to explain something, his phone rings and he carries on a loud extended conversation. Even in this texting heavy age, the commentary on rude excessive cell phone usage is still applicable. As John Resenhouse put it, "Those who don't have cell phone etiquette will remain immortal through time."

Michael Novak played by Brian Paulette is a snarky pessimistic laid-back everyman. He is the most honest of any of the four, and tries to keep the tension from boiling over, providing a painful counterpoint to his wife Veronica played by Cinnamon Schultz, an idealistic control freak who is constantly harping on everyone else, when they don't measure up to her standards. She is always crusading for the cause of an underprivileged group. As their sanity as in shreds they begin to recognize that their marriage is as well.

"God of Carnage" runs 90 minutes without an intermission. It has such a deliberate fluid rhythm through the entire show, that breaking that with an intermission would have detracted from the intense hilarity of the play.

Resenhouse explained, "This play is such a roller coaster that you just jump on."

The ending of "God of Carnage" is very vague and unexpected, but perfect.

As McCrary explained her first feelings about the end of the show, "I don't know about this ending. It's so ambiguous. It's so weird. But now we love it."