God of Carnage

If playwright Yasmina Reza writes what she knows, her deliciously brutal God of Carnage (translated from the French by Christopher Hampton) may make viewers relieved not to know her. True, one would be hard-pressed to get embroiled in a battle of infantilism from which there seems to be no escape. But as evidenced by this co-production of Jewish Ensemble Theatre and Performance Network Theatre, with a sublime ensemble wonderfully directed by David J. Magidson, such childishness can be as gratifying to recreate as it is deviously funny to observe.

The instigating event of the play takes place offstage and is perpetrated by characters that never appear. An incident of playground violence between preteen boys prompts the victim’s parents (Sarab Kamoo and Joseph Albright) to invite the attacker’s parents (Suzi Regan and Phil Powers) for an informal conference that will put the matter firmly behind them. Instead, initial apologies and pointedly civil discourse give way to utter amazement that people can simultaneously rise above something and shove it down another’s throat — this is but the first sign that things are not going to go smoothly. What follows is barely polite savagery at best, which continues to devolve (oh, hey, rum!) through the play’s single act as the parents lash out at each others’ characters, actions, and attitudes.

The experience is no less discomfiting for how deliberately the circumstances present themselves as first-world problems. The positions argued are as abstract as the arbitrarily inflated value of the hostess’s precious out-of-print art books. CULTURE, screams the books — as does the catalog perfection of Monika Essen’s setting and properties design (including superfluous accent lights, an impeccable detail by designer Daniel C. Walker), as does Powers’s highbrow soundtrack. Yet in keeping with the messy discourse, and aided by Essen’s munificence, the play also becomes surprisingly tactile, rife with smells and spills that crack the façade of austerity and drag the characters down to the puerile human nastiness in which they live. Costume designer Christa Koerner finds various buttoned-up and dressed-down niches that speak to each character’s occupation and status, but first and foremost, these costumes are fit to move. Indeed, the performances become a horse race of sorts between physical, vocal, and emotional exhaustion; the sheer effort is commendable.

Yet for all its bellowing ugliness, the formidable ninety-minute production is secretly a triumph of expert direction and careful ensemble work. Each member of the cast is notable in his own way — Albright owns unsavory prejudices with such crass pride, one only hopes that the character is at most half serious; disastrously direct Kamoo wills her just-so dominion over others’ opinions with infuriatingly passive aggression; Powers gives an understated portrayal of one-foot-out-the-door parenting, sidetracked by corporate importance until he’s distracted into doing more; and Regan turns a delicate position into wellsprings of laughter without pronouncing a word. However, it’s actually difficult to describe any one character, because of the complexities, and the wealth of interconnected and changing allegiances, revealed throughout Reza’s effortless text. The play’s themes and wicked humor are rewarding enough, but to watch these so-called adults take sides based on the faintest connections, only to gang up on each other when the subject changes, proves nothing short of a storytelling marvel.

Among its many accomplishments, this God of Carnage is commendable for recreating the feeling of a real argument for the viewer: the stakes are frustratingly high in the moment, but in hindsight, it’s impossible to articulate what all the fighting is about. This production is the JET’s first in the recently christened Berman Center for the Performing Arts (also located within the Jewish Community Center of West Bloomfield); the space has a big, formal feeling that suits the large set as well as acoustics that handle the vocal acrobatics with finesse. On the other hand, the stadium seating in Ann Arbor’s Performance Network space will by design put Essen’s clever and explosive properties in the viewer’s face, for an even greater degree of skin-crawling immersion. Indeed, with such appealingly appalling material — sneering courtesy, gorgeous visuals, uncontrollable tantrums, a completely interactive environment, bacchanals of revulsion, and exhaustive character work so dense and effective, it may escape the viewer’s notice — it’s a marvel that the only awful thing to say about this production is how awfully funny it is.

God of Carnage is no longer playing.
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