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The God of Carnage: A Play (Ff Plays)
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Product Description
What happens when two sets of parents meet up to deal with the unruly behavior of their children? A calm and rational debate between grown-ups about the need to teach kids how to behave properly? Or a hysterical night of name-calling, tantrums, and tears before bedtime?
Christopher Hampton’s translation of Yasmina Reza’s sharp-edged new play The God of Carnage premiered at Wyndham’s Theatre, London, in March 2008 and at Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, New York City, in March 2009. The International Herald Tribune calls it “an expert piece of stagecraft, and savagely funny.”
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #9687 in Books
- Published on: 2009-04-28
- Released on: 2009-04-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 80 pages
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Reza holds the mirror up to bourgeois hypocrisy withthe savage indignation of a born satirist", Guardian. "A triumph! Brilliantly translated by Christopher Hampton", Daily Express.
About the Author
Yasmina Reza is a French playwright and novelist whose works have all been multi-award-winning, critical, and popular international successes. Her plays Conversations After a Burial, The Passage of Winter, ‘Art’, The Unexpected Man, Life x 3, and A Spanish Play have been produced worldwide and translated into thirty-five languages. L’aube le soir ou la nuit (Dawn Dusk or Night), her memoir about a year with Nicolas Sarkozy, was an enormous success in France and was released in the United States last year.
Christopher Hampton’s work for the theater and cinema includes The Philanthropist, Savages, Tales from Hollywood, translations from Ibsen, Moliere, and Chekhov, and the screenplays Dangerous Liaisons, The Quiet American, and Atonement.
Customer Reviews
A Brilliant Play
As I write this (May 26, 2009), "The God of Carnage" by Yasmina Reza is a huge hit on Broadway and has numerous Tony nominations. As in "Life X 3" the dramatist has assembled four people in a room, two couples Veronique and Michel Vallon paired against Alain and Annette Reille. The Reille son Ferdinand has struck eleven-year-old Bruno Vallon with a stick and knocked out two of the boy's teeth.
Two couples arguing over a children's playground fight? No, that would be too easy for Reza. It's a contest that drags in the state of the two marriages, the attributes and characters of all four adults. It becomes a war of wills, probing the fabric of their lives and lies.
It's fun to watch these four people destroying themselves and each other as battle lines are drawn and redrawn. The insults they throw at each other are priceless. Loyalty to one's spouse becomes a disposable commodity. Spouses turn on spouses; new alliances are formed and dissolved. Vomit plays a role in the farce so be prepared. There are some very funny lines. Michel says, "Puking seems to have perked you up."
Both men show off their macho credentials by boasting about being gang members when they were kids. Bruno is accused of being a grass (informer). Michel becomes a "murderer" because he has gotten rid of the family's pet hamster, Nibbles, on the street. All of them are self-indulgent yuppies who easily get off the subject of the kids and into their yuppyish issues. Alain, a lawyer, is constantly talking on his cell phone until someone puts it out of commission.
It's a very clever, focused play, full of laughs. The play owes something to Absurdist traditions. The dialogue at times is inane and absurdist, ridiculous. The way the trouble intensifies is like the proliferation of chairs in Ionesco's famous play. The verbal slaughter that takes place on the stage makes clear the title. Deep meaning and insights? No, but, yes to stripping bare the pretensions and inner feelings of four self-absorbed spoiled adult brats who are probably raising monsters like themselves.
god of carnage
I saw the stage play "God of Carnage"and throughly enjoyed it. The dialogue between the four characters was so interesting I had to read the written play, The interchange of ideas by their open discussion was wonderful. Reading the script brought more meaning to the play.
A master piece
Yasmina Reza is one of the world's most insightful and philophical playwrights of our time. And the translation by Christopher Hampton is magnificent.
