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| Hans Altwies, Denis Arndt, and Bhama Roget. Photo by Chris Bennion. |
Review: God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza. Translated by Christopher Hampton. Directed by Wilson Milam. With Hans Altwies, Denis Arndt, Bhama Roget, Amy Thone. Now through October 24 at Seattle Rep.
“An imitation of a play with a meaning” – John from Greenwich Village in the New York Times, 12/29/09
French playwright, Yasmina Reza is the author of two hugely successful plays, 1994’s Art and her most recent hit, God of Carnage. She is considered a bright and shining star in the theatrical world. In France, she is a major celebrity and the best-selling author of novels and film scripts in addition to her plays. But, she is also a fraud. Yasmina Reza IS the Wizard of Oz. For a decade now, she’s fooled the theatre world, critics and paying audiences into thinking she is the Great and All Powerful Oz when in reality she is a bumbling humbug hiding behind Christopher Hampton’s no doubt tastefully tailored curtains. She is loved by actors for creating hammy characters that rant, rave, expectorate, ravage and riot for 90 minutes in stylish sets and chic wardrobes. Producers love her tiny casts, single sets, contemporary settings and because they can easily hire big name actors eager to ham it up and be home in time to watch the 11 o’clock news. Reza is trendy, stylish and praised for her modernity. She is a sham, a farce and an empty shadow in a wispy, non-existent shroud. She must be stopped.
God of Carnage is about two contemporary urban couples who meet to discuss the best way to handle an awkward situation. The son of one of the couples has injured the son of the other couple in a schoolyard fight and broken the boy’s tooth. The parents are initially presented as affluent, rational, sensible liberals who are working together for the betterment of their children. By the time the play ends ninety minutes later, they are drunken, brawling, immature beasts that have been exposed as phonies and frauds. It is a satirical comedy. It is supposed to mean “something”, to indict the false values and hypocrisy of the upper middle class. For me, it never succeeds because the characters are never real or fully realized. They are cardboard cutouts when the play begins, and they remain cardboard cutouts when the play ends, only drunker and more disheveled. Yes, it has funny moments. Yes, it has a few clever lines. It’s a wonderful play for actors; each of the characters gets multiple moments to shine and display an actor’s full range of gifts. It IS entertaining but it’s a cheap kind of entertainment. I would compare God of Carnage to the popular crime procedurals currently on tv: the Law & Order’s and CSI’s and NCIS’s that are perfect examples of junky, phony but very enjoyable to watch entertainments except for the fact, those TV shows largely acknowledge and accept they are entertaining junk and Ms Reza’s work has delusions of grandeur and artistic relevance. This is not a grand or relevant play. It is bad Neil Simon masquerading as significant social commentary. Only Neil Simon has better jokes.
Not surprisingly, Ms Reza WAS an actress before finding success as a playwright and it shows; she knows how to write plays that appeal to an actor’s strengths and weaknesses. What actor wouldn’t want the opportunity to display the full range of their gifts in a 90 minute show or turn down the opportunity to run amuck on stage with the bonus delight of playing hypocritical douchebags? Actors love “bits” and since God of Carnage is nothing BUT bits, (drinking, eating, vomiting, physical and verbal fisticuffs, cell phone abuse) how can they refuse the temptation?
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| Hans Altwies and Amy Thone. Photo by Chris Bennion. |
Happily, the Rep has cast four exceptional actors to play these douchebags and they do seem to be having a very good time with the material and all those delightful “bits”. We also get the added thrill that the host couple in the play, (it was their son that got hit) is played by a real life acting couple, the amazing Amy Thone and Hans Altwies. Separately and together, they are among the best actors working in Seattle and both are huge assets to this production with Mr Altwies probably giving my favorite performance in the show. It’s easy to over do it when playing a broad character in a farce, but Mr Altwies wisely underplays the character and the comedy and as a result, his character is the most believable and recognizable. He seems like a plausible and real person and while all the characters in this play have their detestable qualities, only Mr Altwies’s Michael emerges as the sole character you might want to spend time with, having a beer in a bar. Just keep him away from your more rodent like pets.
Ms Thone has the most difficult role in the play. Veronica is the stereotypical Bleeding Heart Liberal Yuppie mom concerned about feelings, and emotions, and doing the “right” thing. She is also an insufferable prig and seems to be the playwright’s chief target; Veronica gets the brunt of the abuse and it’s her character that dissolves the most over the course of the play as she is stripped bare, emotionally and exposed as a phony. Ms Thone is excellent at conveying this unraveling; her Veronica might be morally pretentious and politically overcorrect but she does seem to really care about solving problems the right way and Ms Thone is able to convey the character’s anguish without sacrificing the humor in the situation. It’s a touching performance, but also equally funny. I never found the character to be very real, but the performance is both real, and convincing.
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| Denis Arndt and Bhama Roget. Photo by Chris Bennion. |
As the other, more affluent, “corporate” couple, both Denis Arndt and Bhama Roget give excellent performances. Their characters are more broadly drawn than the other couple and even less believable, but both actors resist the urge to overplay them and turn them into complete stereotypes and wisely underplay some of the baser aspects of their characters. Mr Arndt is clearly relishing playing the cell phone obsessed corporate pig and Ms Roget is equally at home as his frustrated trophy wife…she is also splendid with the VERY broad physical comedy required for this role. I won’t ruin the surprise, (it’s gross and it’s funny and it’s a bit cheap) but Ms Roget is obviously having a helluva lot of fun with her big “bit”. But, I wouldn’t want to sit in the front row when she does it.
As for the production design, like all Rep shows it is sumptuously mounted with a big, expensive set by a very famous scenic designer, Eugene Lee, and it’s impressive and gleaming; a stark white, very contemporary, McMansion type home with a circular staircase and two floors but…it’s all wrong! I’ve admired the work of Eugene Lee for many years and I think he is enormously talented but he sort of dropped the ball with this set. While the original production is set in Paris, the Broadway production changed the setting to New York and apparently the creators have given permission for the setting to be changed to where ever the play is being produced. This production drops in local references to Seattle locales and is clearly meant to be in an affluent neighborhood on the Eastside and the house belongs to an upwardly mobile couple from a different social setting. The husband is clearly a self-made man from a more middle or blue collar background, and the wife is a socially conscious, arty, academic type. Yet, their house is a gleaming white cube with tiny windows and a slick personality. I know such houses exist in the area but I don’t believe THESE characters would live in that kind of house; he’s basically a schlub and she is an arty, liberal, Pacific Northwest type who would either live in a beautiful, old, lovingly restored Craftsmen type house OR build a new, sustainable house with lots of Green building materials featuring beautiful hardwoods and native stone and BIG windows, not tiny little slitty windows like the ones in this set. Native Pacific Northwesterners DEMAND windows to let in as much sun as possible. Only idiots or transplants would have such windows. The windows and the house, like the play, the characters and the work of the playwright, are phony and unbelievable.
(Yes, I am aware that God of Carnage is an award winning play; Crash also won the Best Picture Oscar a few years back. I think both of these facts serve as an example that the term “award winning” is empty and meaningless. Sh*t can, and does, rise to the top occasionally…usually because it’s full of hot air.)
– Michael Strangeways
