How much ‘steam’ are you bottling up in order to present a calm and unruffled exterior?
Playwright Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage runs like a demented game of pinball, where personal internal rages are released to bounce back and forth, scoring points as they go before a final tilt stops the game in mid existential limbo.
In 2009, Reza’s play won a Lawrence Olivier Award for Best Comedy and a Tony Award for Best Play. Judging by the supportive cries at the final curtain, her story about two sets of parents seeking reconciliation after their sons have been involved in a fight still carries impressive resonance – but the play’s fearless plunge into issues of misogyny, class and homophobia project the play into tragi-comedy, a darker place where inner demons are revealed.
You could sense the empathy in this audience, the recognition of the beast within, illustrated here by excruciating passages where partners cross red lines, expose their own and their other halves’ dysfunctional failings and pretentions, and deliver jaw-droppingly rude expletives to one another once the opening pleasantries have passed between them. Their respective sons’ one-off physical confrontation begins to pale by comparison as the parents descend into childish petulance, wounded pride and casual abuse while ostensibly attempting to mediate over the issue.
On stage for a single 85-minute act, couples Veronica, an American writer and her husband Michael Novak, a self-made wholesaler, welcome Alan Raleigh, a corporate lawyer and his wife Annette who is ‘in wealth management’ to their straightforward, comfortable London home to discuss their son Henry’s injury at the hands of the Raleigh’s boy Benjamin. There is a friendly if serious tone to the proceedings. There is caution in the air as first one couple then the other imply the guilt of the other’s child. As the gradual resentment eventually boils into visceral intolerance the ironic laughs come a plenty. Humans can be ghastly, and yes, schadenfreude can amuse.
Downton Abbey’s Elizabeth McGovern plays the sensitive author Veronica, seething nicely before ‘losing it’ as rough-diamond geezer husband Michael, given a gutsy performance by Nigel Lindsay, drops faux pas after faux pas. Alan Little bossed the space as self-important lawyer Alan with his ever-present mobile interrupting proceedings, while Amanda Abbington as his long-suffering wife Annette begins to find her feet as the rum begins to flow. Her snapping point, involving a tulip vase, elicits an empathetic cheer.
Director Lindsay Posner ensures the combatants are never still for long on Peter McKintosh’s simple circular living room set, skilfully bringing insulted guests back into the fray just when you think they are gone for good, and always keeping an edge to the night that stopped just short of face scratching!
Reza’s play is worth catching. God of Carnage is proof, if we need it, that when we feel cornered, we can all turn into rats!
★★★★☆ Simon Bishop 5th September 2018
Photo by Nobby Clark
