One of the most acclaimed plays of the past decade is making its way to Rapid City.
Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” will run for eight performances through Oct. 31 at the Firehouse Brewing Theatre, with the debut show at 7:30 p.m. Friday.
The show concerns two couples who meet after the son of one couple hits the other in the face with a stick on the playground. The meeting is intended to be short, but as the four get more drinks into them and the circumstances wear them down, what starts as a diplomatic meeting turns to all-out verbal war. Jan Swank, the artistic director and theater manager of the Firehouse Brewing Theatre and director of the play, said that it was a “sophisticated comedy.”
“It’s not so much a bunch of quips so much as it’s the reactions the people have to what each individual is saying and doing,” Swank said. “Seeing upper middle-class families fighting over insignificant things is funny.”
The show was originally written in French, but it translated into a Tony Award-winning play and an acclaimed film, “Carnage.”
“It’s amazing how well she captures the dialogue of people when they’re trying to solve problems, and that it translates so well to English,” Swank said.
Swank brought the show to the Firehouse in 2012, but said that he’s incorporated a new, more realistic set after using one with all-white walls in the past.
“The stage directions say that no realism should be attempted,” Swank said. “I’ve done it that way once, so we decided to do something different. I think it will reinforce the shallowness of the characters without being overwhelming.”
With either setup, though, the hilarious nastiness of the central characters will come out in full force.
“She really gets the shallowness of our culture and how much drinking helps when you’re arguing about something,” Swank said.
Source: Bringing ‘Carnage’ to the stage : Black Hills to Go
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