University Players (UP), LHU’s drama club, presented their black box theater production of “God of Carnage” at the Countdown Theater in the Sloan Fine Arts Building.
Four performances took place over the span of three days, from Thursday, April 13 to Saturday, April 15.
The one-act dark comedy, originally written by French playwright Yasmina Reza, depicts two pairs of couples discussing a fight between each couple’s sons. Each character begins the night in a calm and mature manner, but as time passes, the meeting slowly diverges into chaos as the adults act as immature as their children.
Brianna Beck, the show’s director, proposed the play at the beginning of the school semester to UP, which was successfully voted on by the club’s executive board.
Since the scale of the play is rather small, with only four actors and one set needed to perform, the club decided to utilize the black box theater on the third floor of Sloan rather than the mainstage theater.
“Practices for smaller productions are similar to larger productions,” said Beck, “especially when it comes to breaking the show down in smaller pieces so the actors don’t have to do the entire play in one sitting.”
However, practice times for black box shows are much shorter and less frequent thanks to the plays being shorter in length and requiring smaller casts.
The small cast, which featured students Alayna Hemphill as Mick Novak, Rachel Maurer as Veronica Novak, Oliver Givens as Alan Raleigh, and Krysta Nordland as Annette Raleigh, was the highlight of the show for Beck.
“I had an amazing time working with the actors on putting the show together,” said Beck, “starting from the first read-through to the final performance.”
The actors improved significantly during practice. Beck said they memorized their lines well and developed a deep understanding for their respective characters despite the short and infrequent practice schedule.
Beck says “The actors got better with each performance, which is always nice to see since you can see the progression of their confidence and characterization.”
Alex Ross
Alex Rossis a third-year Communication student at Lock Haven with a focus in Journalism. This is his second year as an active member of the Eagle Eye and has been the Arts and Entertainment editor, News editor, and an active writer. He focuses on writing reviews for the A&E section, but has written stories for news, sports, and opinions. Outside of the newsroom, Alex enjoys record shopping, reading classic literature, and analyzing films. Alex hopes to work for a film or music news site as a writer or editor after graduation.
My Casting Idea for God of Carnage Revival, Jessica Chastain as Annette Raleigh, Michael Shannon as Alan Raleigh, Oscar Isaac as Michael Novak, Natalie Portman as Veronica Novak,