Yasmina Reza tackles her favourite subject, the pretentiousness and hypocrisies of the bourgeoisie, with her 2006 play ‘God Of Carnage’, currently receiving a Sydney Theatre Company production at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House.
As is her style, Reza chooses a simple scenario from which a whole series of events and dramas evolve. In her most famous play ‘Art’ the lead character, Serge, spends a fortune-some 200,000 francs on a seemingly bland abstract painting, invites two of his best friends over for a viewing, and cops a terrible shellacking from them.
In ‘God Of Carnage’ two couples arrange a meeting after their kids, perpetrator Ferdinand and victim Bruno, have been involved in a playground brawl earlier that day at school, resulting in Bruno having two teeth knocked out. Bruno’s parents, Michael and Veronique, invite Ferdinand’s parents, Alan and Annette, over for a coffee and a ‘debrief’.
The evening starts off civilly but by evening’s end the gloves are well and truly off, and all four characters are in attack mode, picking away at each others weaknesses, behaving in a manner not so far removed from their children’s own earlier stoush.
Reza’s rich and darkly comic blend of social satire comes across strongly and is well served by an excellent Gale Edwards production. All the cast give energised, focused performances, and have good handles on their characters. Marcus Graham looks and is the part of smug, roguish lawyer, Alan Reille, whose mobile work phone is permanently attached to his ear, and who appears to have little time for his wife.
Helen Thomson plays his attractive, sophisticated wife, Annette whose career is in wealth management. Thomson revels in playing the role of a woman who has a cool, even icy exterior, but inside is full of venom waiting to spill out. And it does, memorably, as in when she tells Veronica , ‘Our son did well to clout yours, and I wipe my ass with your bill of rights’.
Sasha Horler gives a strong performance in her portrayal of Veronica, a published author primed with deep liberal sentiments, who is always brandishing some cause, the latest being and peace and stability in Africa. Veronica is in a bit of an odd couple relationship with husband, Michael Vallon. Russell Dykstra is convincing as Michael, a gruff, earthy small businessman who barely tolerates his wife’s liberal sentiments, and is in deep trouble for having released his child’s pet hamster.
The production values for ‘God Of Carnage’ are strong. Brian Thomson’s set of the living room of Veronica and Michael’s plush, very bourgeois apartment works well, and it includes a backdrop for Stephen Toulmin’s very effective extracts of video footage of their children playing earlier in the day.
As a funny, confronting satire on middle class mores, ‘God of Carnage’ is up there with plays by the greats like Moliere and Wilde. Gale Edwards’s production of Yasmina Reza’s ‘God Of Carnage’ plays the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House until November 21.