#1
Posted: 3/4/09 at 5:00pm
It's rare that 4 actors with stage experience who've deviated for years in the world of film and television return to find their stage chops intact. That's why GOD OF CARNAGE, Yasmina Reza's slight but delightful little play, invigoratingly directed by Matthew Warchus, is such a treat for us theatergoers. You see, the play stars 4 great actors of screen - Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden - all of whom are delivering some of the funniest, most carefully calibrated performances I've seen in a long time.
Daniels and Davis play Alan and Annette, invited to the home of Michael and Veronica (Gandolfini and Harden) to discuss the next course of action after their son attacked the other's with a stick. Reza's point is to show how adults are no better than children and how an ordinarily classy gathering between four adults can descend and degenerate into savage playground madness.
The script is slight but dangerously funny - you run the risk of exploding from laughing so hard. It plays a lot better than it reads (I picked up the script in London in preparation). Warchus' vigorous, high-octane staging picks up the slack. Luckily, the four actors are all game for the physical nature of the production.
My biggest question mark was Gandolfini, but he was very good, very funny, playing a variation on the character for which he's so well known, only a lot classier and better educated, even though Michael's basically working-class. He and Harden have dynamite chemistry, as do Daniels and Davis. Daniels is at the top of his game, brilliantly demonstrating how you can say so much with just facial expression. Kudos to Davis for her skills at projectile vomiting.
Chris Hampton's translation is the biggest problem - while the initial French-isms are changed to American, bits and pieces pf dialogue are far too wordy and inherently un-American. I'm convinced that a working-class person such as Michael would say "too" and not "as well." A number of his speeches don't at all sound natural.
Loved the design elements, especially the sound which, while definitely mic'ed, sounded completely natural.
This is the one to see, folks.
Daniels and Davis play Alan and Annette, invited to the home of Michael and Veronica (Gandolfini and Harden) to discuss the next course of action after their son attacked the other's with a stick. Reza's point is to show how adults are no better than children and how an ordinarily classy gathering between four adults can descend and degenerate into savage playground madness.
The script is slight but dangerously funny - you run the risk of exploding from laughing so hard. It plays a lot better than it reads (I picked up the script in London in preparation). Warchus' vigorous, high-octane staging picks up the slack. Luckily, the four actors are all game for the physical nature of the production.
My biggest question mark was Gandolfini, but he was very good, very funny, playing a variation on the character for which he's so well known, only a lot classier and better educated, even though Michael's basically working-class. He and Harden have dynamite chemistry, as do Daniels and Davis. Daniels is at the top of his game, brilliantly demonstrating how you can say so much with just facial expression. Kudos to Davis for her skills at projectile vomiting.
Chris Hampton's translation is the biggest problem - while the initial French-isms are changed to American, bits and pieces pf dialogue are far too wordy and inherently un-American. I'm convinced that a working-class person such as Michael would say "too" and not "as well." A number of his speeches don't at all sound natural.
Loved the design elements, especially the sound which, while definitely mic'ed, sounded completely natural.
This is the one to see, folks.
