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Everyman’s latest excellent show is the play God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, a dark and hilarious comedy about two sets of parents meeting to resolve a playground fight between their eleven-year-old sons, after Ferdinand has hit Bruno with a stick. The play seems to start off rather slow, but that is deliberate as the veneer of civility soon wears off.
Gathering in the Paris apartment of the injured son to draft an amicable insurance statement, their polite facades quickly shatter, and as alcohol flows, the discussion devolves into a chaotic war of words, exposing the deep hypocrisies and marital fractures of all four adults. The result is 90 minutes of utter enjoyment – and fine acting.
The play won the Nestroy Prize for Jürgen Gosch’s Zurich premiere of 2006, the Olivier for Best New Comedy for the Gielgud staging, and three Tonys in June 2009, Best Play among them. Polanski filmed it in 2011 as Carnage, premiering at Venice that September, working from a screenplay he wrote with Reza renaming the characters the Longstreet and Cowan and putting them in New York.
Sharon James-Evans as Veronique Vallon and Alex Ogden Davies as Annette Reille
Everyman have kept the play based in Paris rather than the Americanised version. The “types” and locations are pretty universal in Western society.
Those adults are all annoying in their own ways. Michel Vallon is a self-made wholesale distributor who tries to appear easygoing but beneath the surface has a cynical, aggressive and yobbish streak. His wife Véronique is an idealistic, totally self-righteous writer who thinks everything should be seen in the context of global justice, cultural art, and apply them to societal morals. That falls apart as well.
The most obviously dislikable character is Alain Reille who is shown as a cold, obsessed corporate lawyer who is constantly distracted by mobile phone calls concerning defending a drugs company that is clearly trying to avoid litigation for the side affects of the medication. It so happens Michel’s ill mother is taking the dodgy substance. His wife Annette is also at first an obvious baddie as she is a stressed investment broker. She has the most famous scene in the play when her anxiety (or is it the home made apple and pear clafoutis) results in her throwing up. If we do not hate them all enough already the couples’ nicknames for each are Darjeeling and tou tou. tou tou is apparently a French term for pet dogs.
Simon Futty as Michel Vallon
The chemistry between Sharon James-Evans and and Simon Futty, as the Vallons, in keeping up the semblance of a stable rather woke couple, and Alex Ogden Davies and Brian Smith, as the similarly seemingly reasonable and controlled couple, is exquisite, making the meltdown when each turn on each other, the men against the women, the men against each other, the women against each other. It is all a hilarious joy to behold.
I have no idea if the Americanised film version with Jodie Foster and Kate Winslett as the wives is anything like this but I am delighted I saw this first.
Alex Ogden Davies with Brian Smith as Alain Reille
Yes, it has the tone of Abigail’s Party and similarly the child/ren at the heart of the drama do not appear If you enjoyed the former, you will also enjoy this contemporary take on the eternal couples and sexes and social climbing pressures that make of great plays.
By the way, Freddie Starr might have eaten my hamster, but he didn’t leave him out in the gutter. You’ll get it when you see the play.
It really is worth 90 minutes of your time and at one point I even said to my partner “Did she really just say that?”
Chapter Until July 18. 7.30pm with a 2.30pm matinee on the 18th.
https://www.chapter.cymru/whats-on/everyman-theatre-god-of-carnage
Directed by Peter Harding Roberts
Photos credited to Cressida Ford
