Yasmina Reza is a master of exposing modern foibles in all of their horror and humor.
Mostly humor.
In her play “Art,” having a Broadway revival later this year, Reza makes fun of a collector who spends an appreciable sum on a painting that is pure white. If you look close, the buyer says, the canvas has subtle diagonal white stripes that allegedly give it texture, but it appears on his wall as a solid rectangle of white.
In her 2009 Tony-winning play “God of Carnage,” the French playwright turns her attention to human nature as she depicts how a meeting to resolve a fight between two 12-year-olds on a Brooklyn playground dissolves into an escalating series of snipes, bickers, attacks, and full-out tantrums from the adults, the boys’ parents, who presumedly gathered to settle matters maturely.
Reza has a good time building the tension that erupts into verbal venom and physical assault.
Peter Bisgaier makes sure none of Reza’s good time is missed by mounting a smart, hilarious production that happily inaugurates the new Bordentown home of the Pegasus Theatre, where “God of Carnage” plays through Sunday, October 23.
Bisgaier’s staging is not as knockdown-dragout as previous productions I’ve seen of “God of Carnage.” Glass isn’t smashed, pillows aren’t thrown, hair isn’t pulled, and slaps are kept to a minimum.
Bisgaier and his crackerjack company of four prove agitated dudgeon isn’t necessary. “God of Carnage” is just as biting and effective with the fireworks confined to steamy looks, bitter revelations, moments of chill, lines delivered with undisguised invective, and all attempts at cultured civilization obliterated by people acting as they will and saying what they think in a marvelously funny display of held-in thoughts and emotions bursting from internal silence to the noisy, no-holds-barred fore.
By the time “God of Carnage” is over, all pretense of discussing, let alone doing, “the right thing” is kaput as we see two pairs of usually well-behaved adults exhausted from their boisterous session of hurled insults, savage denigration, and telling what is more likely the truth than the polite words they were mouthing before mayhem took precedence.
Bisgaier and cast accomplish everything they need with tone of voice, telling expressions, and deadly glares. Pegasus’s approach works so well, you palpably sense all the carnage one character says a specific god of carnage has foisted on humankind. The atmosphere on stage becomes so intense, Bisgaier only needs to employ one act of overt violence, a woman taking what looks like a running start to hurl herself angrily at her fatuous husband, to show how out-of-hand matters have gotten in a place intended to promote negotiation and understanding.
“God of Carnage” being a comedy, this attack elicits a great laugh. Bisgaier’s way of letting temper boil to the surface keeps all on a comic level and allows you to see how well Reza, and her translator from French, Christopher Hampton, know people and what they can be driven to do.
From the first time I saw “God of Carnage,” I was impressed with Reza’s send-up of “do-gooding.” Sarcasm begins at the start of the show when the mother who arranged the parents’ conference, the mother whose child was injured in the impromptu playground skirmish, presents a written account of all her son told her happened and expects the parents of the boy who struck the hurtful blow to sign.
The woman also insists the offending boy’s parents speak to him in a specific way about his “crime” and punish him for it.
Naturally, this meddling, however well-intentioned and even accepted as a possibly civilized method of dealing with the fight, leads to innuendo that turns the other parents from merely rolling eyes to being defensive and flinging recriminations about the boy who was struck.
And deserved it.
Pretty soon, you see how fights emerge, whether on playgrounds or in Cobble Hill apartments filled with valuable art books.
Add to the mix a man who can’t stay off of his cell phone, men from both couples who take a different attitude towards boys fighting than their wives do, a husband who gets fed up with being criticized and henpecked, and a woman who becomes embarrassingly nauseated by the negotiation process, and you have myriad sources of comedy that Bisgaier and company bring to their funniest effect.
The Pegasus cast is uniformly excellent, exuding timing, temper, and tone that carries the production from top to finish.
Mary Tomson is the picture of self-righteous rectitude as the mother who convenes the conference to restore peace on the playground. She maintains her character’s poise even when it’s clear neither the other couple nor her husband wants to go into the details of the kids’ fight the way she does.
Tomson’s Veronica claims to be making a stand for maintaining a standard of civilization while her husband humors her more than admires her, and the other couple tire early of her virtuousness. She is no less entertaining when her Veronica decides to let go, put her critical tongue to work, and ensures the difference of opinion the other couple is likely to express.
Jennifer Nasta Zefutie provides wonderful moments as her Annette glares more and more angrily at her husband as he interrupts the parents’ meeting to take business calls. She perfectly handles a tough scene, one in which Annette, gets sick, by being funny while making you care about her and if she’ll be all right.
Righteous Jolly makes it fun to see his character, Veronica’s husband, Michael, unravel from a man who backs his wife in everything to one who shows how miserable his life is and finally asserts personality and individuality. You can see the relief in Michael’s face when he finally tells Veronica to back off and let him enjoy his idiosyncratic pleasures, which don’t include negotiating with neighbors.
You can barely tell David Nikolas, who plays Annette’s husband, Alan, is acting. He seems so at home is his part of a man who likes the providing the attention his law practice demands and thinks, from the beginning, that Veronica’s wanting to have a peace conference and punish his son, is a crock that deserves the constant interruptions his telephone causes.
Nikolas is especially good as expressing his character’s attitude through body language and a habit of staring in a sort of reverie instead of paying attention to all Veronica is spouting.
I knew Peter Bisgaier’s cast would not be flinging crockery with reckless abandon when I entered the theater and saw Jennifer Szeto’s interesting set, a living room that has a real sofa and side tables but represents books, pictures, shelves, and knickknacks on them by via paintings in bright red on the upstage flat that marks a wall of Veronica and Michael’s apartment.
It was fun to see what objects Szeto included in her painting and clever the way she made room for one actual object, a copy of a book Veronica wrote about Darfur.
Chrissy Johnson dressed each character authentically. Robert Rutt’s bright lighting suits the openness the host, Veronica, would want.
God of Carnage, Pegasus Theatre, St. Mary’s School, 45 Crosswicks Street, Bordentown. Through Sunday, October 23, Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturday, 3 and 8 p.m.; Sunday, 3 p.m. $28. 609-759-0045 or pegasustheatrenj.org.
