Yasmina Reza's "God of Carnage" is making the rounds of the world's theaters. The French playwright's latest was a huge success after its world premiere in Zurich in 2006. Premieres in London in 2008 and New York in 2009 won awards, slayed critics and wowed audiences. Now the play has come to Moscow in a production by Sergei Puskepalis at the Sovremennik Theater.
This all echoes the triumphant procession of Reza's first international hit, "Art," which, incidentally, is still playing in Moscow 11 years after it came to town. In fact, "God of Carnage" is something of a sequel to that earlier work. In both plays, a quartet of civilized individuals come together and regress to an animal state as their differences strip away the sheen of their middle-class habits and beliefs.
The key here is "middle-class." Reza writes of and for the middle class, perhaps the upper end of it. Her characters are people who have accepted and welcomed the rules, perks, responsibilities and manners of polite, educated and repressed society. They live lives in which most complex disputes are resolved by clinging closely to the dictates of decorum and habit. Anything falling outside of the proper politesse is as shocking as it is inevitable.
"God of Carnage" is, I must say, a great title. It promises much. What it delivers is a middle-class version of people going to the well — which means a bit of alcohol, some lost tempers and some hair let down.
Puskepalis and designer Eduard Gizatullin gave the show a slick, modern setting. The metallic furniture echoes a metallic strip running over the walls and ceiling like a road map of a maze. Dominating everything is a widescreen monitor hanging high above the room. It starts out as a computerized video aquarium — some of the fish are color-coded with bouquets in glass vases — before providing a few semiprovocative cinematic scenes drawn from nature, then finally falling into disuse.
Veronique and Michel Vallon are hosting Annette and Alain Reille in their home. The reason is not the most pleasant: The Reille boy, an 11-year-old, whacked the Vallon boy in the mouth with a stick, breaking a tooth. Their parents have come together to do the right thing by everyone — make sure that social infractions are punished, losses are repaid and lessons are learned.
Olga Drozdova's Veronique is what should be a contradiction in terms — an artistically oriented soul who appears to be wracked by inferiority complexes. A writer, a social crusader and a part-time art curator, she speaks through tight lips and fiddles nervously with her wig.
As Michel, Sergei Yushkevich is less concerned about the rough edges he shows. He calls himself a wholesaler but was probably a door-to-door salesman in the past.
The Reille couple wears its class and privilege with ease and nonchalance. Alain (Vladislav Vetrov) is a high-powered attorney who is dressed in jeans and constantly gets into arguments on his cell phone with colleagues over a case he is involved in. Annette (Alyona Babenko) is a cute and perky wife who, up to a point, seems most concerned about keeping everyone happy and in line.
The four actors provide crisp, well-defined performances of recognizable types. All are as predictable as daylight, right down to those moments when and manners in which they throw caution to the wind. Their fears, outbursts, pain and anger are programmed by Reza in neat, inevitable strokes, and the performers deliver them in kind.
Babenko's Annette stands out in part because she is the most unmarked of the quartet — we don't really know who she is or what she does. But it is the charm and spark that Babenko instills in this moderately mysterious woman that makes her come to life.
"The God of Carnage" entertains but rarely challenges us to question what we already know. The depth of humor and the complexity of issues are defined early on when Michel turns on the television to keep his guests entertained at an awkward moment: Images of two elephants caught in the act of procreation confound and embarrass everyone into even more silence.
It is an "oops" kind of moment, one you might expect to happen in a middle-class living room. I suspect, however, that the gods, with their carnage and vengeance, are lurking elsewhere.
"The God of Carnage" (Bog Rezni) plays July 11 and 27 at 7 p.m. at the Sovremennik Theater, located at 19 Chistoprudny Bulvar. Metro Chistiye Prudy. Tel. 61-6473, 621-1790. Sovremennik.ru. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.
This all echoes the triumphant procession of Reza's first international hit, "Art," which, incidentally, is still playing in Moscow 11 years after it came to town. In fact, "God of Carnage" is something of a sequel to that earlier work. In both plays, a quartet of civilized individuals come together and regress to an animal state as their differences strip away the sheen of their middle-class habits and beliefs.
The key here is "middle-class." Reza writes of and for the middle class, perhaps the upper end of it. Her characters are people who have accepted and welcomed the rules, perks, responsibilities and manners of polite, educated and repressed society. They live lives in which most complex disputes are resolved by clinging closely to the dictates of decorum and habit. Anything falling outside of the proper politesse is as shocking as it is inevitable.
"God of Carnage" is, I must say, a great title. It promises much. What it delivers is a middle-class version of people going to the well — which means a bit of alcohol, some lost tempers and some hair let down.
Puskepalis and designer Eduard Gizatullin gave the show a slick, modern setting. The metallic furniture echoes a metallic strip running over the walls and ceiling like a road map of a maze. Dominating everything is a widescreen monitor hanging high above the room. It starts out as a computerized video aquarium — some of the fish are color-coded with bouquets in glass vases — before providing a few semiprovocative cinematic scenes drawn from nature, then finally falling into disuse.
Veronique and Michel Vallon are hosting Annette and Alain Reille in their home. The reason is not the most pleasant: The Reille boy, an 11-year-old, whacked the Vallon boy in the mouth with a stick, breaking a tooth. Their parents have come together to do the right thing by everyone — make sure that social infractions are punished, losses are repaid and lessons are learned.
Olga Drozdova's Veronique is what should be a contradiction in terms — an artistically oriented soul who appears to be wracked by inferiority complexes. A writer, a social crusader and a part-time art curator, she speaks through tight lips and fiddles nervously with her wig.
As Michel, Sergei Yushkevich is less concerned about the rough edges he shows. He calls himself a wholesaler but was probably a door-to-door salesman in the past.
The Reille couple wears its class and privilege with ease and nonchalance. Alain (Vladislav Vetrov) is a high-powered attorney who is dressed in jeans and constantly gets into arguments on his cell phone with colleagues over a case he is involved in. Annette (Alyona Babenko) is a cute and perky wife who, up to a point, seems most concerned about keeping everyone happy and in line.
The four actors provide crisp, well-defined performances of recognizable types. All are as predictable as daylight, right down to those moments when and manners in which they throw caution to the wind. Their fears, outbursts, pain and anger are programmed by Reza in neat, inevitable strokes, and the performers deliver them in kind.
Babenko's Annette stands out in part because she is the most unmarked of the quartet — we don't really know who she is or what she does. But it is the charm and spark that Babenko instills in this moderately mysterious woman that makes her come to life.
"The God of Carnage" entertains but rarely challenges us to question what we already know. The depth of humor and the complexity of issues are defined early on when Michel turns on the television to keep his guests entertained at an awkward moment: Images of two elephants caught in the act of procreation confound and embarrass everyone into even more silence.
It is an "oops" kind of moment, one you might expect to happen in a middle-class living room. I suspect, however, that the gods, with their carnage and vengeance, are lurking elsewhere.
"The God of Carnage" (Bog Rezni) plays July 11 and 27 at 7 p.m. at the Sovremennik Theater, located at 19 Chistoprudny Bulvar. Metro Chistiye Prudy. Tel. 61-6473, 621-1790. Sovremennik.ru. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.
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