The God of Carnage - Assignment Example

God of Carnage Yasmin Reza’s God of Carnage, play, begins with undoubtedly civilized meeting in an evening between two couples who had come together to solve a dispute between their sons. One son, Ferdinand had hit a friend with a stick to an extent of knocking one of his teeth out simply for not allowing him to be part of his gang. One couple is seemingly from the middle class while the other is of an upper class, one couple dowdy, the other chic but ken to solve the sons’ disagreement. At the beginning, they all seen honest since they admit the family faults. The ‘nice’ couples’ gathering progress well but start diverging at every stage with throwing of words at firs to throwing of things at each other. They undergo a total transformation at that evening meeting, quite fascinating. The characters are quite cartoonish. Veronica, by the fact that she is from a lower middle class has her clothes exemplifying that, and she has contributed to archaeological collection on a coming book on the Darfur tragedies. However, she is not a writer type from the behavior she portrays. Ironically her violent behavior and intense personality goes against her main concern in relation to Darfur. Her husband, Michael, has his shirt indecently flapping out of the trousers, he owns a domestic hardware and he is equally from a lower middle class. On the other side, Annette, bond, svelte, and well-dressed, and his husband Alan elegantly dressed and from the upper class. Annette is a wealth manager although she talks less about it. Alan on the other hand is a lawyer and on phone although with a conversation going on whereby he is advising a pharmaceutical company not o remove a problematic drug from the market since that will attract a liability He is quite immoral since he claims that the victims will be thought of later (Yasmin, 56). Hostility flares up and they find themselves attacking each other verbally with Veronica claiming to be representing civilization, hey descend on each other throwing every object available. They starting with couple against couple which shifts at times to women against men, he men could drink amiably while sited on the coach but the women to the extent of screaming at them. The sudden swing to slapstick from the dark and bizarre scenes will land one in the vortex. Was it not bitter and angry, the text could generally be termed as comedic. The excellences of the cast members have drawn their characters with brush strokes distinctively yet the end is with an undifferentiated swirling mass of turmoil. The play very much brings on board the cultural context in which Reza was brought up and used to; as an immigrant she saw and experienced what the immigrants were going through in France. Some are referred to us half-French and yet they are born and raised in France, the lower middle class. The constant conflicts cause by the class differences in the French society are part of Reza’s motivation to writing the play. Her personal life as an immigrant from Russia to France and her acting career has played a significant role in the shaping of the play, God’s Carnage. The action flows well since she keenly arranged the scenes as a professional actor herself. Her personal experience as a mother gave her the storyline of her play. Her son had engaged in a fight with his friend and happened to knock one of his teeth out (Komisar, 2012). Reza met with the injured boy’s mother while escorting the boy to school and enquired about the boy’s health, only for the mother to surprise her over the disgusting behavior of the other boy’s parents who did not even call to check on the boy’s health. Reza was the one who had not called in this case and she was astonished not to know what to do. She remembered this incident after she was approached by a Germany theatre director who wanted her to come up with a play. The artist is like a mirror in the society and portrays what transcends in the world and in this case the storyline is based on a real life event and the way grownups are behaving worse that the kids who are expected to be in mistakes as compared to adults (Day, 2012). The genre of the play is comedy. The situational irony that runs almost the whole session qualifies it as a comedy. The unexpected behavior of diplomatic adults of t be childish is quite entertaining as it brings out the behavior of adults in a humorous manner. The play employs the absurdity style of writing that was first embraced by the French during the post war period. The play is absurd since it uses broad comedy to bring out a serious matter. The repetitious, illogical and nonsensical dialogues qualify Rene as an absurd writer in relation to this play. The play will be centrally based on the class conflict as illuminated in the play. I could like to produce this play so that it can serve in sensitizing people on the behaviors that are unconventional in the society that people propel to others without keen consideration to their effects and influences they can have on the younger generation. It will be a comedy in the making to bring the entertaining part clearly so that the concentration of the audience is maintained. The play will be set in the past as a real thing that has already happened in the contemporary world and therefore a reflection on man’s past and behavior in general. The flashback will come in handy in this case so that the actions that fall in the past can be brought back within the context. The setting will be created by the use of background colors that will bring the night mode. The props to be available include a phone, the one Alan uses to call the pharmaceutical company and the objects on the table like flower vessels so that the disagreement will include throwing of objects. The costumes will be of two sets to portray the two classes of the lower middle class and the upper class to show a representation of the two families. The lighting will be an integral part to show the change in time and the end of a scene as the light fades; both side and front lighting will be used. The choreography of the play will be of great importance since there will be a lot of movements and arguments in the play. The thespians in this play will be quite few as per the play itself; it will require two couples with a son in each family. Works Cited Day, Elizabeth. The Guardian. Yasmina Reza: 'There's no point in writing theatre if it's not accessible'. 22/1/2012. Komisar, Lucy. The Komisar Scoop. Theatre: The “God of Carnage” watches polite society disintegrate. 2012. Web. Reza, Yasmin. The God of Carnage. Trans: Hampton, Christopher. London: Faber & Faber .2009. Print. Read More