Praise for God of Carnage
"Thank you for the wonderful play performance on Saturday. It was spectacular! The four of you were superb in your roles. Joe's discussion was also great; he provided the environment for the audience to digest and begin to explore the drama. The play truly invited an experience in the audience as we all were moved by the power of an actual reading by actors in our own midst that portrayed and explored a difficult experience in our inner as well as our outer worlds. I think the play stimulated the eagerness with which people sought to make contact with their friends in conversation after the play."
– Walker Shields, M.D.
"The Psych Drama Company, led by Wendy Lippe, and The Red Well Theater Group of Boston, led by Barbara Keezell, recently presented a reading of the play “God of Carnage.” Their performance, with first rate acting and directing, hit the ball out of the park! The play shows two seemingly civilized couples who meet to discuss a playground altercation between their two sons. The interaction quickly degenerates to hostility and then open aggression. The fault lines in the two couples are exposed and various alliances arise and then disintegrate. Is the playwright showing how thin the veneer of civilization is in general, and/or do we see how we are wired to fight on behalf of our young?
It is the mark of a successful play and successful performance that the audience is left with many questions and ideas to share and discuss. The commentary by Joe Shay and ensuing audience discussion was thought-provoking and helped develop various themes within the play. In contrast to the difficult marriages shown in the play, the collaboration between these two theater groups was a great marriage and bodes well for future productions."
– Eleanor Counselman, Ph.D.
"Bravo! I just witnessed an extraordinary playreading performed by two theater companies. The two companies combined to pull off a captivating dramatization of God of Carnage, the Tony award winning play by Yasmina Reza. With superb directing by Lida McGirr, we had uniformly excellent acting by Wendy Lippe (the Producing Artistic Director of The Psych Drama Company), Barbara Keezell (founder of the Red Well Theater Group of Boston), Michael Anderson, and Chuck Schwager. Each of these actors inhabited their part with energy and abandon and the audience was drawn into the almost hypnotic experience of participating in a full scale performance rather than a reading of the play. This is an remarkable tribute to the directing and the acting (even with some of the actors working as psychotherapists by day and moonlighting as actors on the side!).
The play itself, so beautifully written in 2006, is on its face about two upper middle class couples trying to deal with the fact that one’s son struck the other’s son with a stick. These civil and civilized couples, initially respectful and calm, are soon striking the other couple with verbal sticks. As if that wasn’t sufficient, each marriage also deteriorates, at first slowly and then with a rapidity known, of course, to most therapists but also to many people in their own couples relationship. As an audience, we are left to ponder: what just happened? Has civility given way to brutality? One character says of the other couple, “these people are monsters.” But at this point in the play, everyone seems like a monster. And we, the audience, are laughing at these monsters. Have we become monsters? Is everyone a barbarian? Is that what the title reflects? And, the added subtext to the play is that it is being performed in 2018 when our national discourse has at times taken on the coloration of barbarism.
To engage deeply with these substantive yet uncomfortable questions requires an invitation that is at once appealing and compelling. As performed so powerfully by these two companies, we were given that invitation. Bravo!"
– Joe Shay, Ph.D.
– Walker Shields, M.D.
"The Psych Drama Company, led by Wendy Lippe, and The Red Well Theater Group of Boston, led by Barbara Keezell, recently presented a reading of the play “God of Carnage.” Their performance, with first rate acting and directing, hit the ball out of the park! The play shows two seemingly civilized couples who meet to discuss a playground altercation between their two sons. The interaction quickly degenerates to hostility and then open aggression. The fault lines in the two couples are exposed and various alliances arise and then disintegrate. Is the playwright showing how thin the veneer of civilization is in general, and/or do we see how we are wired to fight on behalf of our young?
It is the mark of a successful play and successful performance that the audience is left with many questions and ideas to share and discuss. The commentary by Joe Shay and ensuing audience discussion was thought-provoking and helped develop various themes within the play. In contrast to the difficult marriages shown in the play, the collaboration between these two theater groups was a great marriage and bodes well for future productions."
– Eleanor Counselman, Ph.D.
"Bravo! I just witnessed an extraordinary playreading performed by two theater companies. The two companies combined to pull off a captivating dramatization of God of Carnage, the Tony award winning play by Yasmina Reza. With superb directing by Lida McGirr, we had uniformly excellent acting by Wendy Lippe (the Producing Artistic Director of The Psych Drama Company), Barbara Keezell (founder of the Red Well Theater Group of Boston), Michael Anderson, and Chuck Schwager. Each of these actors inhabited their part with energy and abandon and the audience was drawn into the almost hypnotic experience of participating in a full scale performance rather than a reading of the play. This is an remarkable tribute to the directing and the acting (even with some of the actors working as psychotherapists by day and moonlighting as actors on the side!).
The play itself, so beautifully written in 2006, is on its face about two upper middle class couples trying to deal with the fact that one’s son struck the other’s son with a stick. These civil and civilized couples, initially respectful and calm, are soon striking the other couple with verbal sticks. As if that wasn’t sufficient, each marriage also deteriorates, at first slowly and then with a rapidity known, of course, to most therapists but also to many people in their own couples relationship. As an audience, we are left to ponder: what just happened? Has civility given way to brutality? One character says of the other couple, “these people are monsters.” But at this point in the play, everyone seems like a monster. And we, the audience, are laughing at these monsters. Have we become monsters? Is everyone a barbarian? Is that what the title reflects? And, the added subtext to the play is that it is being performed in 2018 when our national discourse has at times taken on the coloration of barbarism.
To engage deeply with these substantive yet uncomfortable questions requires an invitation that is at once appealing and compelling. As performed so powerfully by these two companies, we were given that invitation. Bravo!"
– Joe Shay, Ph.D.
© 2019 The Psych Drama Company/Pandora’s Box Productions, Inc.