Theater review: God of Carnage

         

              Francis Gerke, Keiko Green, Jessica John and MJ Sieber                                     

I’ve never considered Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” a laugh riot, but then I’ve never seen it done by those wild and crazy guys at Backyard Renaissance, either.

But you can (and should) see their laugh-riot version now through March 25 at the Tenth Avenue Arts Center in downtown San Diego.

Here’s the setup: two eleven-year-old boys got into a fight, and one of them knocked out the two front teeth of the other. When the show starts, those two sets of parents meet to decide how to settle the matter.

High-powered corporate lawyer Alan (Francis Gerke) Raleigh and his wife Annette (Keiko Green) are the parents of the kid who knocked out the teeth. The victim’s parents are company wholesaler Michael (MJ Sieber) and Veronica (Jessica John) Novak. They meet at the Raleigh residence, where Veronica has set a coffee table with art books, and she brings clafoutis and offers drink.

Annette, the victim’s mother, is constantly on the verge of a panic attack, which she soon demonstrates by vomiting all over the table. After that, the evening quickly devolves into a name-calling session in which they all end up attacking each other.

Michael blames the kids: “Children consume our lives and then destroy them.”

Alliances change from parent sets to men vs. women, to which man is “better” or “smarter” and which woman is a proper female.

Okay, but when it gets to grabbing the tulips Veronica carefully placed in a vase and throwing Alan’s omnipresent cell phone into the vase, well, you can laugh or not. I found it hilarious.

Alan sums up the human condition this way: “Are we ever interested in anything but ourselves? You do what you can to save yourself.”

Kudos to everyone concerned with this show: set designer Yi Chien-Lee, lighting designer Chris Lynne, fight choreographer George Ye, costume designer Jessica John Gercke, technical director Chad Ryan and master electrician Kate Rose Reynolds. And especially to director Rob Lutfy.

Let’s face it, humans are not necessarily humane, especially when they want something, and this version is a comedic wonder in which glances, gestures and yes, often words create a hilarious (if sometimes horrifying) evening for the audience. Don’t miss it.