SHOWS: God of Carnage - helpful hints

[loebtmc]

Has anyone done God of Carnage and willing to share some hints abt the extreme gags - in particular the projectile vomiting?

(Ms Reza always seems to put something seemingly impossible into every script, eh?)

Thank you so much for your assistance!

Edit to subject line.-Rebbe

[kiwitechgirl]

We used a whoopie cushion (of all things!) attached to one of those rubber hoses a bit like the ones you find on bunsen burners in high school chemistry labs.  I seem to remember there being a convenient point where the actress is offstage not too long before the vomiting, and we strapped it (carefully!) to her then, with the cushion, filled with fluid, under her arm, and the top of the tube just in the neck of her costume.  At the appropriate moment, she'd squeeze the cushion against her body with her arm, and it would force the liquid up through the tube.  I think we may have used a hose clip to join the cushion and hose, that way it could be detached to allow easier filling up of the cushion.  Not sure what we used as the vomit - something not too thick!  I wasn't actually working on the show, just floating on the periphery - I'll get hold of the SM and see if she can add any more detail!

[loebtmc]

Do you know what liquid was used as the vomit? That would also be helpful, since clearly the costumes need to be cleaned a lot more often....

[PSMKay]

You may also want to check with Scott/Digga, who has listed this show in his BTDT.

[loebtmc]

yes thanks, I had sent a PM that way first - posted as well in case there were others who simply hadn't updated their BTDT list - amusingly, so far they both did the same basic thing!

[Hols]

We had an elevated platform in the scenic design, so we ran a tube backstage to a pressure pump. The connection point was hidden up the leg of the sofa and the actress playing Annette actually had the rest of the tubing run up her back through her sleeve. The pressure came from backstage but she had full manipulation of the stream. For the spit ups, more vomit was just shot through the hose and she held it in her mouth.

Hope that helps! Feel free to PM me if you have more questions.

Hols

[anole]

I'm late to the game, but: we fitted a hot water bottle with nozzle sticking up at the opening, then had that inside a pillow she squeezed. The liquid would hit her jaw (she'd hold a hand up to her mouth and cover it) and splash through her fingers all over the table and the husband.
For further spit-ups her head was in the dishpan.
We used a mixture of teas for the vomit to get the color and slight foamy-ness... YMMV if you're in a smaller theater.

Also- instead of real clafouti we used very thin cheesecake without any crust. Easier for the actors to wolf down.

[nick_tochelli]

http://www.stage-directions.com/current-issue/25-answer-box/4437-blowing-chunks-artistically.html


Really smart and innovative way this props master found to have an actress projectile vomit onstage realistically. I'm tucking this into a bag of tricks in case it ever comes up!

[babens]

Now that's a really ingenious way of doing that.  Since I'm sure this show is going to be everywhere soon (it already seems to be popping up pretty frequently as it is) definitely one to file away for future reference.

[missliz]

Cool!

[PSMKay]

The comment exchange after is kinda funny. Audience vs propmaster flame war ending with looking to the SM's notes for validation.

[SMdrum]

I saw this cool video awhile ago on YouTube.  The technical director at Florida Rep explains how they created the projectile vomiting effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kFva1U4USU