My thoughts on GOD OF CARNAGE

[Yankeefan007]

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.

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/4/09 at 5:17pm

Ah, I really wanna see this. Thanks for the review, yankee. Did you get the tickets via TDF? If so, how were the seats?

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/4/09 at 5:30pm

Row E of the mezzanine, dead center. The last few rows, for the record, were empty.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/4/09 at 7:27pm

bump

[jordangirl]

Posted: 3/4/09 at 11:19pm

What's the run time?

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/4/09 at 11:26pm

Barely 90 minutes. Curtain up at 5 after the hour, on the street by :30 an hour later.

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/4/09 at 11:32pm

Any word on a rush?

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/4/09 at 11:35pm

Haven't heard anything, but there was plenty of room for it today.

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 3/5/09 at 12:52am

Completely agree with you; I was actually shocked how finely tuned all the performances were this early on. While Gandolfini wasn't as impressive to me as the other 3, all four actors are asked to give extremely complex, ambiguous performances that often convey about 3 or 4 different things all at once. While I laughed a whole hell of a lot, I loved how there were so many carefully-calibrated moments that perfectly capture human nature at its worst, while feeling entirely familiar/recognizable.

My favorite such moment (directed and acted with such grace, as to not hammer home the joke): late in the play, when Gay Harden is crying by herself, and Daniels starts walking towards her, and you think maybe, just maybe, this man has a glimmer of humanity or empathy --- oh, nope, he's just walking to grab the bottle of rum off the desk adjacent to Gay Harden.

As funny as it is, this is dark, dark stuff, and I loved every minute of it. Easily one of the best things I've seen this season.

[being.jeremiah]

Posted: 3/5/09 at 2:19am

Really can't wait to see it. Hope they do some sort of student rush sometime soon, too!

[jordangirl]

Posted: 3/5/09 at 6:29am

Thanks! Just got a TDF ticket for tonight. :)

(And thanks for the warning about the projectile vomiting. I'll be braced and prepared now.)

Updated On: 3/5/09 at 06:29 AM

[WiCkEDrOcKS]

Posted: 3/5/09 at 9:09am

I'm confused about the projectile vomiting. Hah...can someone elaborate on it a bit?

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 3/5/09 at 9:44am

She gets nauseous and, well, vomits all over everything. It's obvious from her posturing at the moment it occurs that she has a vomit pack concealed in her sleeve.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 3/5/09 at 10:06am

Thank you for your thoughts. I think it's great that you swallow the fact that these parts are no longer fun to post and post anyway. All because of your duty to the denizens of BWW.

[jordangirl]

Posted: 3/5/09 at 11:10pm

I just got in a few minutes ago from seeing this. Thoroughly enjoyed it! Definitely worth seeing. Ended up with 6th row on the side TDF. Paid for my membership with this one! :)

[osage08]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 3:08am

I just saw the show and to be honest, I was a bit disappointed. I thought that the acting was excellent but although entertaining, the show didn’t resonate with me. As Yankeefan007 explained, the premise behind God of Carnage is that two couples are meeting up to discuss how to handle a recent schoolyard scuffle between their children and their polite meeting soon turns into borderline madness.

I get the basic themes: the hypocrisy of politeness and culture vs. barbarity. I just wish that the characters had been more fully developed and themes more subtle. It felt as if one moment the characters were discussing dental implants, the next they were arguing about the inherent hypocrisy behind the ideals of humanitarianism, the next they were throwing hysterical hissy fits and the next they were calmly discussing tooth fixtures and arranging plans again. The progression of the play did not seem smooth or cohesive to me and I think that a topic like the hypocrisy behind civility is far too involved for 90 minutes, especially when things like genocide, justice, humanitarianism, the evils of materialism etc are thrown around as well. Much more time would have been needed to deeply develop these ideas.

The characters did not have very much depth either. They actually seemed more like stereotypes than actual characters to me. Alan and Annette were the distant working stiff and classy homemaker, respectively, while Michel and Veronica, new wealth, were the self made man and selfless humanitarian respectively. Although I could see their frustrations in trying to maintain these roles and felt the strain of their marriages, their personalities were nowhere near as intricate as those from say the characters in August: Osage County.

*SPOILER*
In one particularly exemplary scene Michel criticizes Veronica’s books and her obsession with the Darfur crisis. In response, Veronica leaps onto Michel’s back, pounding him with her fists in a fit of rage. Although dramatic, her reaction seemed to come from absolutely nowhere. I understand that Veronica was frustrated with her marriage, the belittlement of her dreams of peace in Darfur, the restraints placed on her by the life of culture and refinement that she tries to live etc but that reaction still seemed completely out of place and sudden in the context of the scene and I didn't understand her motivation to respond with that much violence.
*END SPOILER*

I agree with Yankeefan007 about the script. There were definitely gaps in the American translation. The dialogue seemed very unnatural and stiff. I could not imagine seeing couples, however cultured, speaking quite that formally during a normal conversation.

I hate to be so negative, the show was definitely as interesting one to watch, it just left me feeling rather underwhelmed.

PS- To reiterate,I am not at all criticizing the performances of any of the actors. Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden are all very talented and were wonderful in their roles.

Updated On: 3/9/09 at 03:08 AM

[wonkit]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 10:16am

I missed Reza's similarly slight but effective play ART a few years ago. Thanks for the review. I wasn't planning to see this but now it sounds like a reasonable choice.

[April Saul]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 11:03am

Well, sure, Osage is right about character development not being up to August: Osage standards...I don't think that's what the playwright is going here for. It's just so...much...FUN!! And I do think this'll be a tough ticket to get a month from now...

[WithoutATrace]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 11:05am

I completely agree with osage08. While I really enjoyed the actors and thought they did a fantastic job, they play itself left much to be desired. I found it pointless...

[jordangirl]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 12:43pm

Osage08 ~ Just responding to your thoughts in the spoiler section... I saw that move as sort of the last crumbling of the charade she had constructed for the meeting. It was one of those last straw things, and the pressure was just too much and her base feelings came out and couldn't be hidden anymore. (Of course, I guess you'd have to see the front she was putting up as just that, a front in order for it to make sense.)

Like I said earlier, I did enjoy it a lot and will probably revisit it at some point just because I'm sure there are things I missed, especially in the more high-action sequences. :)

[osage08]

Posted: 3/9/09 at 1:39pm

jordangirl- I understand in theory why Veronica had that response; that she couldn't take the pressures of dealing with her failing marriage, the attacks on her virtues, and the barely hidden hostility in that room etc while restricted by the facade of civility. I get her frustration and that she had reached her breaking point. I just think that this scene would have been more effective if it were written more subtlety since the suddenness of her attack just didn't seem natural to me.

Thats how I felt about it but I guess its really just a matter of opinion. I'm glad you enjoyed the show, though. :]

Without a Trace- Thanks. I didn't want to be the only killjoy here lol

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 3/19/09 at 9:56am

Just saw this a 2nd time last night at the Press night, and I've got to say, I really think it's the play of the season. The only competitors for me were BECKY SHAW and THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN, but seeing this again really pushed it ahead of the pack -- all the performances, explosive lines, little nuances were much more perfected/refined since I last saw them, and it was around the halfway point that I realized how improved the show had gotten since the first week of previews (though I loved it then as well).

Changes I noticed:

-- Marcia Gay Harden went even BIGGER with her performance (particularly in the second half), though, oddly, never to the point of being over-the-top, just a realistic progression of where this character would go over the course of this conversation (her delivery of "I don't give a s**t!" still had me in stitches though).

-- Gandolfini (who I thought was the weakest of the 4 initially) has really stepped up to the plate, and actually made me buy/believe the reveal at around the midway point. His performance now slowly builds up to it, rather then it coming as an abrupt shift. Also, lots of changes in inflection that turn lines of dialogue on their head. For example, his "I've always been a f***ing neanderthal" got ROARS of laughter at the first performance, but now the line has been turned into a dark, sadistic, almost sad admission.

-- The line about "Your friend, Jane Fonda" has been changed to "Your friend, Joan Baez." I don't know why exactly...?



Also, I felt the inclination to stagedoor, and while Gandolfini didn't come out (as I expected), everyone else did. They warned us the actors wouldn't pose for pictures, but we could still take pictures of them signing. Hope Davis was very cool and low-key, talking about the play with those who engaged her. Jeff Daniels (who notoriously does NOT like doing the autograph / being personable thing) looked a little sullen -- the Natasha Richardson news broke during the performance -- and was quiet, but did sign for everyone and made little chit-chat; though as he got into his car, I felt a little bad for the guy as a car full of Jersey italians (clearly "Dumb and Dumber" fans) honked their horn loudly and yelled out their window at him. He clearly, and understandably, hates this aspect of doing theatre, and does the work just for the work.

And, well, I kind of fell in love with Marcia Gay Harden. She obviously loves all facets of being an actress and enjoys the give-and-take with fans (or if she doesn't, she does a pretty fantastic job pretending like she does). She had a warm back-and-forth with everyone that spoke to her, no simple "thank you"s -- it was the sort of thing where I think everyone who was at the stage door felt like they got a personal "moment." Someone said "Good luck at the Tonys" (which I always think is obnoxious), and she smacked them -- lightly, jokingly -- on the head with their Playbill, and said "oh stop, don't jinx it, but thank you!" I mentioned to her that, while I love her work and her performance in this play, I think her performance in "The Mist" is brilliant, underrated, and helps humanize a character that was one-note on the page, and she talked a little bit about working on the film and why she took the script. Like I said, it may just be part of the game, and she may just pretend like she enjoys dealing with fans, but she seemed genuinely delightful.


Anyway, sorry for rambling more about the stagedoor then the play itself, but I hope they implement some sort of rush so more non-gray hairs can see this show, as I think it'll go over great with those who don't mind choking on their laughs once in a while when the darkness and implications of the dialogue resonates. Really just an amazing night of theatre, and I may regret predicting this, but I think it's going to get outright raves, and has a pretty decent shot at the TONY for Best Play.

Updated On: 3/19/09 at 09:56 AM

[boonanas]

Posted: 3/19/09 at 10:01am

Hope Davis and Marcia Gay Harden are great at the stage door. Jeff Daniels refused a picture with me and did not want to sign but did anyway. He's still a great actor though. And good luck to anyone who wants an autograph from Gandolfini.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/19/09 at 10:07am

Glad you enjoyed the show even more this time around MiracleElixir. I also think the production will receive good notices and receive some Tony noms. I still will be 100% rooting for Irena's Vow to win best play though! (Unless something down the pike changes my mind of course)

[MiracleElixir]

Posted: 3/19/09 at 10:09am

To be fair, I haven't seen IRENA'S VOW yet, but based on what I know about it, it seems like more of a Leading Actress vehicle, and the subject matter seems familiar enough that I don't know if it can compete with something like GOD OF CARNAGE which is original, is stacked with clever dialogue, 4 great performances from big names, and has potential to be a word-of-mouth hit.