Yasmina Reza Archives - North West End UK

23Oct

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

Yorkshire & Humber

Art – Sheffield Lyceum

Yasmina Reza’s comedy Art is a renown work and this production shows than signs of downing tools and allowing its acidic wit to pale. Three friends Serge, Marc and Yvan deconstruct their own friendship whilst attempting to assimilate an objective verdict on Serge’s new £200,000 baby – a ‘blank’ white canvas. Or as Serge puts it, a canvas with shades of grey, thin lines and spots of red. This red is certainly not to be seen, nor is the profoundness of the work as Marc sardonically blasts the piece and Serge’s heinous modernist taste. This ignited the fuse between the two, catching the somewhat neglected Yvan in the process, who certainly tries his best to mediate. Seann Walsh, Chris Harper and Aden Gillett play masterfully across a majestical yet understated set design. While Wals...

God of Carnage – Schauspiel Köln at Depot

Director Tristan Linder’s adaptation of Yasmina Reza’s original French play, translated and performed in German with English surtitles, skewers modern bourgeois society which is torn between enlightened goodness and all-too-human egoistic competition. Two eleven-year-old boys have fought on the school playground with one hitting the other with a stick which results in the loss of a couple of teeth. As civilised people, the parents decide to talk things through together. So Véronique (Lola Klamroth) and Michel (Alexander Angeletta), parents of the victim, Bruno, invite Annette (Sabine Waibel) and Alain (Jörg Ratjen), parents of the perpetrator, Ferdinand, to discuss over coffee and biscuits, a more consensual and politically correct way to influence the behaviour of Ferdinand in line wit...

God of Carnage – Cheadle Players

Written by Yasmina Reza, ‘God of Carnage’, a play that was originally written in French and translated by Christopher Hampton, graces the stage of the Players Theatre in Cheadle Hulme this week. Directed by Bruce Taylor, this was certainly an interesting performance choice from an amateur theatre company. Having been lucky enough to see Reza’s play ‘Art’ in London's West End in the late 1990’s it was exciting to see another of her plays. ‘God of Carnage’ was certainly a challenge to an amateur theatre company. Proud owner of a Tony Award in 2009, the story is set in a New York apartment. It relays the story of two couples, ‘Veronica’ (Sarah Howsam), and ‘Michael’ (Matthew Powell). The second couple, ‘Annette’ (Alexandra Severn) and ‘Alan’ (Christopher Billington) are invited to discuss ...