It comes as no great revelation that adults can act like children. You can be well-educated and evolved. You can be a high-powered lawyer or a published author. But when you put down the napkin of civilized human behavior, you may be surprised at the sharpness of your very own bite.
"God of Carnage" is Yasmina Reza's eviscerating dark comedy about a quartet of grown-up enfants terribles who come together over espresso and pear-and-apple clafoutis to mediate a fight between their sons (who never appear onstage). A child's tooth has been ripped to the nerve. And in the course of one never-ending afternoon, his parents, Veronica and Michael Novak (Jasmine Guy and Keith Randolph Smith), will clash with his perpetrator's mom and pop, Annette and Alan Raleigh (Crystal Fox and Geoffrey Darnell Williams).
The play, now receiving a grandly designed, deliciously acted treatment at the Alliance Theatre, was a 2009 Broadway hit featuring big-name stars Marcia Gay Harden, James Gandolfini, Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels (as Veronica, Michael, Annette and Alan, respectively). Indeed, there’s much to be admired here in director Kent Gash’s lavish production, which features a drop-dead gorgeous set by Edward E. Haynes Jr. The actors chew up the material, and the show comes off as a bristling, 75-minute entertainment that runs like clockwork.
Sorry to say, however, that I find Reza’s dramedy, which won the 2010 Tony Award for best new play, a slight one-noter that’s all over the place in tone and style. A naturalistic living room comedy on the surface, it stretches its conceit to double (and triple) as social satire and farce — ultimately landing somewhere between an Edward Albee knockoff and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
At least in Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”, which traffics in the same kind of verbal meat-grinding and swiftly changing alliances, not every character had killer claws. (Remember Honey?) But in, ahem, “Who’s Afraid of Veronica’s Clafoutis?” — yes, a pastry becomes a plot point and recurring zinger — every character is pretty evenly stacked in the hysterical department.
As for the ensemble, Guy is charismatic, fun to watch and a little more believable than Smith’s Michael. There's not a lot of chemistry between this couple, and Smith's take on his character can be confusing. Michael at first seems to be playing games; he grins like a mule eating briars, but what's really going on here? As the evening progresses, we see personality shifts both subtle and broad, in all of the characters, but Smith's muddled beginning is more confusing than complex.
Fox is probably the best of the bunch, particularly in calibrating the demeanor of a mature woman who goes from lovely to outraged over the course of the story. (She also gets a gross-out scene that you are likely never to forget.) Yet even in her final unhinging, Fox's Annette is somehow likable. Her voice is as rich and seductive as caramel, too.
Williams’ Alan — as a corrupt attorney whose special interests play into the author’s agenda — is also good. Much to the group’s chagrin, Alan goes back and forth between the living room shenanigans and a cellphone conversation conducted via an earpiece. Williams’ timing is perfect. Part of the humor is that we often think Alan is responding to something being said onstage when he’s just doing tele-business.
But that device can only go so far, and the playwright strains to keep Annette and Alan in the picture long after any normal, self-respecting pair would have paid their goodbyes and fled the carnage. You see, that’s my problem with “God of Carnage" and (Reza's "Art," too). You can always feel the hand of the creator, and even though this production makes for good sport, you’re too aware that the ensemble members are actors, not authentic people. Lots of blood, not much soul.
Theater review
“God of Carnage”
Grade: B-
7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays. 8 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays. Through Jan. 29. Alliance Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-5000, alliancetheatre.org
Bottom line: Good production of a so-so play.
