A Cultured Afternoon at the Theatre: God of Carnage

Another beautiful shot of the Opera House by G.

G promised to take me to see the Taming of the Shrew at the Sydney Opera House, because I love Shakespeare. Yesterday we set out to make good on that promise.

We arrived at the Box Office a couple of hours beforehand to try to get tickets through the youth rush. Turned out that no youth discount is offered for Shakespeare. I was a bit disappointed, but the lovely woman attending us let it slip that it wasn't exactly her favorite production, and offered us other options. We ended buying tickets for The God of Carnage, of which the woman had heard good things and tickets were being offered at the discounted rate.

Photographs of past productions outside the the Theatre.

We had a couple of hours before the show and by now we were starving, so once again we headed out to find lunch on Circular Quay. We decided to go to Young Alfred at the Customs House, which is a little expensive, but we both felt we owed them a little karmic debt. A few weeks ago I lost my phone. They found it and were nice enough to get ahold of us so I could pick it up. It also didn't hurt that they have a nice patio where we could enjoy the sunny afternoon while having lunch. The food turned out to be lovely as well.

A beautiful Trout Salad and Margarita Pizza -- at Young Alfred they called it the Martha.

The God of Carnage was fantastic. It's a satire on modern manners. Two sets of parents get together to discuss a playground altercation in which one of their sons hit the other. The plan is to discuss the matter in a civilized fashion, but things quickly devolve into war. Attacks fly not only from couple to couple, but from men to women, and women to men, until each person is fighting for himself alone. Things get explosive. When it comes to kids, all manners fall away.

It's biting and witty in a way that will makes you cringe. The tension of the scenes move you first to giggle uncomfortably, and then to laugh out loud in spite of yourself.

After the show, we decided to cap off our afternoon with a walk through the Botanic Gardens. This time we glimpsed a kookaburra. I've been wanting to see one of these guys in the wild. While we didn't get to hear him do his crazy kookaburra laugh, it was lovely cap on our afternoon of refined culture.

Cute little Kookaburra


I just like the flower.