In “Art,” her very successful play, Yasmina Reza gives a simple theme, “What is art,” as many literal variations as Beethoven can give musically. She brings the same ability to her new play, “God of Carnage,” now at the Ahmanson Theater. She manages to twist and turn the plot so that a simple meeting between two couples disintegrates into a free-for-all. The message seems to be that we are all Neanderthals at heart and that marriage is therefore an impossible entanglement.
The four-person cast consists of two couples who try to arrive at some settlement after an unpleasant encounter between their two sons. Civilized and genteel, the parents discuss the problem with cool common sense. But this is not to last. During the course of the next hour and forty minutes, the affability gradually disappears and the four protagonists become antagonists, resorting to verbal and physical abuse.
It is all very clever and the punching and jabbing can be rather amusing. After all, this play won the Tony Award as best of the season. However, the sight of seemingly successful couples, well dressed and well spoken, acting like thugs can be disturbing. Husbands and wives revealing inner resentments has been done before as in Albee’s “Virginia Woolf” but here there is little insight or sympathy.
This might be over sentimental, because “Carnage” has some very funny moments and the cast falls nicely into the levity. But here, too, there are reservations. James Gandolfini tends to mumble, Marcia Gay Harden as his wife, goes over the top, and Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis are efficient but bland. Daniels is on his cell phone a good deal of time, a gimmick that palls after awhile.
A simple but handsome set has been provided by Mark Thompson and Nancy Thun. Matthew Warchus is the director who has managed the marital “carnage” quite well.