Yasmina Reza wrote God of Carnage in French. It won a slew of awards in Paris. Christopher Hampton translated it into English. It won a slew of awards in London. Hampton adapted it slightly into American English, setting it in Brooklyn. It won a slew of awards in New York.

Now God of Carnage is playing at the Kirkwood Theatre Guild. The night I was there the audience laughed some and appeared to enjoy it.

The Kirkwood production deserves to be appreciated. The four actors, Annnalise Webb, Tim Kelly, Rebeccca Pasley, and Harry Kilmer, make bold choices and take huge risks, hurling themselves about the stage, throwing up, crawling on the floor. Their comic timing is impeccable. Director Mike De Pope has seen to it that the chaos is precisely controlled. Brightly lighted by Eric Wennlund, Betsy Gasoske’s open, modestly spare living room with one wall covered by colorful original paintings. conforms to everything expected of an upper-middle-class New York apartment. Deb Dennert’s costumes reflect the hosts-and-guests roles of the two couples who have met to consider what to do about a schoolboy altercation in which one couple’s son broke two teeth of the other couple’s son when he hit him with a stick. It couldn’t be done better or be more amusing.

Yet about five minutes into that performance of God of Carnage, I was saying to myself, I don’t believe any of this. These characters do not behave like credible, consistent human beings. They behave like pawns of the playwright, manipulated to go to extremes and get a laugh. Yes, the play does show the thin civilized surface of these sophisticated New Yorkers breaking down, exposing the god of carnage who lurks behind all human behavior. But the play also shows the thin credible surface of a theatrical creation breaking down to expose the contrivances that keep the plot spinning.

I feel guilty about my response. Who am I to react so differently from the thousands of audience members who have had a wonderful time at God of Carnage, to say nothing of the Olivier and Tony voters who have bestowed their awards on it? So I examine the play and my responses to try to puzzle out why I feel the way I do. 

And here we run into the difference between a reviewer and a critic. A reviewer sees one performance of a play and, usually under a deadline, tries to set down as honestly as he or she can what happened on that stage and what it meant to one person watching it and why it meant that. A critic spends weeks or months in his ivory tower, text in hand, responding to the text and perhaps to a performance, with time to dig and compare and contrast and figure out in detail what’s happening in that play and in his or her responses to it.

And to probe a little further, perhaps this play, in its balance between farce and comedy that plays must strike, leans more toward farce in its writing, while the playing of it here — and I suspect in those award-winning productions also — leans more toward comedy, with more serious notes. And I guess I would respond more happily to farce.

So here is one reviewer’s response to God of Carnage at the Kirkwood Theatre Guild, quick and maybe shallow. But don’t just take my word for it. Go see the play. It runs through November 6. Odds – very good odds – are that you’ll enjoy it a lot. 

—Bob Wilcox

Photo by Dan Donovan Photography
From left to right: Tim Kelly as Michael Novak, Annalise Webb as Veronica Novak, Rebecca Pasley as Annette Raleigh, and Harry Kolmer as Allan Raleigh in God of Carnage.