GOD OF CARNAGE Reviews

[being.jeremiah]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 4:21pm

The star-studded Broadway turn of Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage officially opens at the Bernard Jacobs Theatre tonight, March 22.

The Great White Way bow of the play, which earned 2009 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy, features Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden. Props to director Matthew Warchus, translator Christopher Hampton, set and costume designer Mark Thompson, lighting designer Hugh Vanstone and sound designers Simon Baker and Chris Cronin (with music by Gary Yershon).

Happy opening, God of Carnage! May you receive the reviews you deserve.

LimelightMike's not doing his job, I might as well jump in. Please post the official reviews here!

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 4:23pm

Best of luck to everyone involved! I'll be there on Wednesday afternoon and am very excited.

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 4:24pm

Sluck!

[being.jeremiah]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 4:25pm

NY1 is Positive:

"The great joy in this production is in the way these outstanding actors bite into their roles. There's some scenery chewing as well. Jeff Daniels' wonderfully obnoxious lawyer, initially the biggest creep, is outdone by James Gandolfini's wholesaler whose mildmannered façade is shattered with a barrage of beautifully played nastiness. Hope Davis as a waspy wealth manager comes deliciously unglued with the addition of some choice rum and Marcia Gay Harden in perhaps the most developed of the roles as a socially conscious art lover is divinely hysterical."

http://www.ny1.com/content/ny1_living/96040/ny1-theater-review---god-of-carnage-/
Updated On: 3/22/09 at 04:25 PM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 4:29pm

That was definitely positive.

Off to a good start! Updated On: 3/22/09 at 04:29 PM

[being.jeremiah]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 4:33pm

I can't spell her fondness of the play, though she thinks it's faulty. Positive it is then!

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 4:34pm

Thank god Limelight Mike didn't start this thread at 12:01am last night...

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 4:35pm

Yeah, that was an odd review.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 4:36pm

He couldn't. He was drunk.

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 5:41pm

I'm predicting raves.

Just a sidenote, as of 4pm, there were still 50% tickets on TKTS for opening night tonight.

[CSonBroadway]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 5:44pm

Ouch, that's sad...especially for opening night.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 5:45pm

I wouldn't feel so bad. After these reviews come out, it should be a big hit.

They're not even setting up a rush in anticipation of how well they think it will sell.

[faithzilla]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 5:49pm

There was a commercial for this on TV the other day....I live in Texas. Um, why? Haha.

It looks great, though! I wish I could see it!

[scott68]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 5:55pm

I was lucky enough to get standing room tickets last night (it was on TKTS, but by the time we got to the booth they were sold out, so we ran to the box office), and I'd be shocked if the reviews weren't overwhelmingly positive. The play itself is a little on the slight side, but the performances are all fantastic (Marcia Gay Harden is BRILLIANT), and there are so many hilariously awkward moments.

[frogs_fan85]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 7:12pm

AP is Positive

"Civility gets thoroughly trashed along with a few other things in "God of Carnage," Yasmina Reza's hilarious yet surprisingly thoughtful comedy... In "God of Carnage," Reza demonstrates a keen, satiric understanding of middle-class values and the pomposity that often comes along with them. Yet she is a moralist, too. When values fly out the window, what's left to take their place? Apparently a world where brute force or the law of the jungle triumphs. Fortunately, in this sparkling production, laughter brilliantly accompanies the wholesale destruction."

http://tinyurl.com/cotdyn

Updated On: 3/22/09 at 07:12 PM

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 7:25pm

The AP is more than positive - that's a Rave if ever I saw one.

Variety is Very Positive:

"From verbal zingers to sly physical humor, the timing is superb. Gandolfini's "Sopranos" persona plays nicely against his initial manner and then pushes the transformation up another notch when he drops the pretense. The glowering, in-your-face look Michael shoots Veronica while crossing the room is hilarious, as is his unapologetic confession of a symbolic episode regarding the "liberation" of their daughter's pet hamster...

...Like its title, "God of Carnage" is not always the subtlest play; it doesn't go deep and it's not without its repetitive passages. But it's elegant, acerbic and entertainingly fueled on pure bile. It's Reza's sharpest work since "Art.""

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117939912.html?categoryid=33&cs=1

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 7:43pm

Backstage is Very Positive:

"If there is such a thing as a first among equals, that would be Marcia Gay Harden as Veronica, Michael's art-historian spouse. At first bristling with liberal intentions and loaded to the gills with the milk of human kindness, she proves to be the most ferocious pugilist in this living-room smackdown. When she tightly asks her hubby for a drink and he denies her request, her silent slow burn seems to immolate the theatre. Her bottled-up anger erupts like lava from a volcano, and her final, exhausted phone call to her daughter is heartbreakingly funny and sad.

Like Reza's Art, also directed by Warchus and featuring the same design team, this play was a hit in London and continental Europe and will probably achieve a long run on Broadway. With its single set, small cast, and high quotient of laughs and Virginia Woolf-like dramatic action, look to see God of Carnage go through several cast replacements in New York and show up on the rosters of numerous regional theatres."

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/nyc/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003953967

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 7:49pm

The Hollywood Reporter is Very Positive:

"The setting and characters have been Americanized for the Broadway production, with somewhat broader and less successful results. (It's funnier when repressed Brits resort to scandalously vulgar behavior). But this cast goes through its paces brilliantly, with Gandolfini -- revealing not a trace of his Tony Soprano -- a particular revelation with his slow-burn comic turn.

In a heavyweight Broadway season stuffed with productions of Chekhov, Ibsen, O'Neill, Ionesco, August Wilson and the like, this sophisticated satire should prove a welcome diversion for audiences looking for comic relief."

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 8:45pm

I think it's funny that one review notes James Gandolfini's similarity to Tony Soprano and another notes that there is no trace of the character whatsoever.

Either way, thank God the to-be-expected positive reviews are coming in.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 9:44pm

TheaterMania is Positive:

"There are several things wrong with Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage, in which two upscale Brooklyn couples get together to ease the friction caused when the 11-year-old son of one couple knocked two teeth from the mouth of the other couple's 11-year-old son. But almost none of those flaws ultimately matters much, because the soigne yet knockabout comedy at the Bernard B. Jacobs is simply too entertaining from fade-in to inconclusive fade-out, especially as sleekly translated by Reza's usual go-to guy, Christopher Hampton, well directed by Matthew Warchus, and beautifully performed by four top-drawer actors -- Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, and Marcia Gay Harden -- all of whom know how to be comic simply by immersing themselves in the characters' quirks.
...
So what if Reza is on a soapbox about humanity's weak underpinnings? The bubbles rising from the soap are buoyant. "


Full Review Updated On: 3/22/09 at 09:44 PM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 9:52pm

Word of Mouth is a Rave:

They basically all agree it's a play that everyone would enjoy.

Review Link Updated On: 3/22/09 at 09:52 PM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 10:18pm

Talkin' Broadway is Very Positive:

"...Reza and Hampton couldn?t have embraced those precepts more fully themselves. As with Reza?s previous plays on Broadway, Art and Life (x) 3, God of Carnage enlarges everyday concerns to show the exquisitely detailed facets within them - but without revealing the microscope. This play?s quartet enacts our secret hatreds and fantasies, demonstrating (with deliriously devastating results) why we shouldn?t do the same. Hampton (who also translated Reza?s other plays) complements this with his lively and idiomatic language that?s full of brusque, common poetry that stings as it sings.
...
Because of how rapidly and often the characters? allegiances shift (between partners, between genders, and between guiding philosophies), each actor must be capable of becoming anything at any given moment - and, most importantly, of becoming nothing at evening?s end. All four actors are terrific - not least because they evince such stiff stolidity in the opening scene, trying to work out the precise language they?ll use to describe their sons? playground altercation, that you?re sure you?re in for an evening of lumbering waxworks. But no.
..."



Full Review

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 10:22pm

Positive with reservations from Mr. B.

"...Still, on the page the play doesn’t amount to much. It needs the fine-honed idiosyncrasies and unconditional commitment to unsympathetic characters that the actors here provide. They’re a marvelously giving, balanced ensemble. And each has bits of inspired invention that you tuck away into your memory file of classic stage moments: Mr. Gandolfini, in his first Broadway performance since he found fame as Tony Soprano, ingenuously defending cruelty to a pet hamster or conscientiously holding a blow dryer to damaged art books; Ms. Harden solemnly wrestling for control of the rum bottle; Ms. Davis’s nausea-prone character toting a plastic basin like a worried toddler; and Mr. Daniels obliviously shoveling down clafouti while talking on the phone."

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/theater/reviews/23carn.html
Updated On: 3/22/09 at 10:22 PM

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 10:27pm

Brantley's review basically adds up to, "Well, the play isn't much, but I had a helluva time!"

That'll sell a few tickets.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 3/22/09 at 10:30pm

Entertainment Weekly gives the show an A-:

"Matthew Warchus, who's directed each of Reza's previous shows on Broadway, maintains a finely balanced farce-like pacing, giving particular attention to the silences in which his so-called adults stew and contemplate their next immature assaults on one other. And Christopher Hampton, Reza's longtime English-language translator, has created a witty adaptation that smartly suits its new U.S. venue (transposing the play's original Paris setting, which had been employed in London, to Brooklyn's Cobble Hill.)

From her international hit Art to Life x 3, Reza has established herself as a master of middlebrow social satires, magnificently constructed plays that reveal the character and contradictions of various types, that insert just enough highbrow references (clafouti, Darfur) to suggest a greater depth, and that gallop to a final curtain in an efficient hour and a half, without intermission. God of Carnage is true to form. In addition, it's enormously fun to watch ? and this well-synchronized cast of Broadway veterans has a grand old time devolving into petulant children on stage."

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20267200,00.html