Recap God Of Carnage

God Of Carnage, now playing on the Guthrie Theater’s McGuire Proscenium stage, is a simple response to the current chaos that is modern parenting. The characters—there are only four of them, two couples in their 40s—spend their time quarantined in an elegant but simplistic New York City apartment, forced together after the unfortunate stick-whacking committed by one couple’s son upon the other. Teeth were lost, words were exchanged, feelings were hurt, and now the parents are glued together in discussion of the incident. Although at first civil, their predicament unravels into a free-for-all where they each say whatever the hell is on their mind. At its most basic level, the play is four privileged people getting riled up over trivial white people problems. In other words, it’s perfect for the Guthrie’s audience. If the conflicts of privilege are your bag, then this play will be your Prada purse. 

Written by Parisian Yasmina Reza and translated by Christopher Hampton, the dialogue is witty, the direction (John Miller-Stephany) is sharp, and the escalation into absurdity is as pleasant as an escalation into absurdity can be. Insults are flung, niceties are forgotten, and, gradually, it is revealed that adults are just as barbaric as kids. There is even a scene involving projectile vomiting, à la Saturday Night Live. That classic clafoutis they’re eating and obsessing about? It’s just a distraction, something genteel, “civilized” people consume right before regressing into barbarianism. The contrast between high and low culture, and the humor that results, act as the wheels on which this production spins.

The alliances formed between couples shift and bend quickly based on human impulse. In the beginning, the Novak couple (Jennifer Blagen and Chris Carlson) are allied in the defense of their bullied son. The Raleighs (Tracey Maloney and Bill McCallum) are visitors in their home, and the parents of the stick-wielder. The two couples devolve from simple marital teams living Pottery Barn catalog lives into a more symbolic division of the sexes that is much messier, including cathartic screams such as, “I am a neanderthal!” The men really become men.

There’s nothing really wrong with Carnage—all of the technical pieces are in place. But watching four individuals lose their civility and essentially arrive at an understanding that they are classless animals—not just elites set atop a pristine, Cobble Hill backdrop—is a bit taxing, like watching a marathon of the Real Housewives Of New Jersey. The excitement is there, and the allusions of grandeur present, but laughing at such a privileged struggle leaves a stale taste in your mouth. But the onstage vomiting? That was a good touch.  

God Of Carnage plays at the Guthrie Theater through August 7.