Theater Review: "God of Carnage"

Four adults are gathered around a living room. At least two of them will suddenly puke.

That can be the crude, albeit appropriate, CliffsNotes summary of the one-act play, “God of Carnage.” The play is making its Los Angeles appearance at the Ahmanson Theatre with its original Broadway cast through May 29. If anything, though, the play acts as a vehicle for the cast of Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden to compete for how much they can out-jerk each other for 90 minutes.

“God of Carnage,” which won the Tony Award for best play in 2009, starts off with pleasantries between two sets of parents as they try to settle a schoolyard dispute between their respective sons. Veronica (Harden) is a self-righteous art historian while her husband Michael (Gandolfini) is a proud, self-proclaimed Neanderthal of a man. On the other end of the jerk-couple spectrum is Alan (Daniels), a cocky and uncouth lawyer and his wife Annette (Davis), who works in “wealth management.”

The prerequisite politeness between the couples turns into an all-out battle, making use of the “Carnage” in the title. Veronica’s red-walled living room becomes more of a bloody army barrack, with the throwing and the yelling and the consequent vomiting.

Gentrification, wealth, racism and pseudo-morality become hot debates between the couples and, at least in the play, it becomes clear that being married and having children is just about the worst. For instance, Michael’s fear of rodents leads him to let his daughter’s hamster loose on the streets, which becomes the topic of dozens of futile arguments. However, there’s nothing worse than watching the vain bourgeoisie feeling sorry for themselves.

The adults in the play are pettier than their pugilistic sons. Essentially, they all act like babies, whether they are whining about how ugly their perfectly arranged tulips are or how much one spouse hates the other spouse. The useless arguments are humorous at first, but they soon become exhausting. Add 10-year-old rum to the mix, and the volume of the arguments just gets deafening.

That isn’t to say that the play is a train wreck of rich-people proportions. While the play featured a lot of noise of the arguing variety, it is much noted that the yelling was exemplary in a thespian sense.

Davis’ cathartic projectile vomiting was a highlight of the play, which makes sense because most of their petty tiffs amount to literal vomit. And it makes sense that Harden won the Tony for best actress in 2009, because I don’t think anyone can play the “woe is me” screaming culture freak as well as she does.

Likewise, it was nice to see Gandolfini, of Tony Soprano fame, out of the mob and playing a guy who gets super red-faced and mad at the force-feeding of culture down his throat instead of the regular hit jobs. Daniels also plays the shifty lawyer aptly with his cellphone serving as a sort of conjoined fetus at the side of his head.

Playwright Yasmina Reza seems to have a grasp on the inside jokes of the upper-class married folk, which may leave the younger set with blank faces. No one should care so much about settling a teeth-knocking fight between two young boys; teeth grow back and life moves on, except for these irresolute, aging hipsters.

There is not an ounce of sympathy to root for any of the characters. All of them are so self-involved and self-deluded in their own respective grandeurs that I found myself not caring about any of them. And I doubt that many people would find any sort of emotional investment in them either.

Email Jue at [email protected].