Two eleven-year-olds got into a fight at a children’s playground. Since one of them lost two teeth due to a stick blow, their parents arrange a meeting to discuss the unfortunate incident. Anet and Alen’s visit to Veronik and Mišel’s elegant Parisian apartment begins with polite chatter, in calm and reconciliatory tones of decent people. […]
Two eleven-year-olds got into a fight at a children’s playground. Since one of them lost two teeth due to a stick blow, their parents arrange a meeting to discuss the unfortunate incident. Anet and Alen’s visit to Veronik and Mišel’s elegant Parisian apartment begins with polite chatter, in calm and reconciliatory tones of decent people. However, cracks quickly emerge on the polished surface of bourgeois civility. Relationships become more tense, the situation escalates, and it turns into mutual accusations and an all-out confrontation of increasing proportions. We witness a psychological war between the couples, and long-suppressed disagreements in both marriages come to light. The conflicting situation, though approached with sobriety, tolerance, and diplomacy, leads to the uncovering of the darkest sides of their personalities. As the amount of alcohol consumed increases, so do their eruptions of anger and repressed aggression. Sexist, racist, and homophobic remarks abound, and their extreme egocentrism and lack of empathy are astonishing. The events escalate, and the quarrel between the sons is merely a forgotten trigger.
World-renowned French playwright Yasmina Reza (1959), the author of numerous theatre hits, is already familiar to our audience. She wrote the play “God of Carnage” in 2006, receiving numerous awards for it. Like in many of her other works, this brutal comedy mercilessly exposes the contemporary bourgeois elite, while using irony and sarcasm to highlight the hypocrisy of human nature. The clever satire is characterized by brilliant dialogues and remarkable character believability. Yasmina Reza and Roman Polanski adapted the play into a film screenplay, which was made into the film “Carnage” in 2011, featuring a renowned cast of actors.
Foto: Peter Giodani
Ulysses Theatre