Broadway Blogs - God of Carnage: Screw the Middle Classes! I Will Never Accept Them! and More...

There's a fine, fine line...  No, let me rephrase that.  There's a wide gaping canyon between clever social commentary and unmotivated slapstick.  And while I'm not suggesting that Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage had me longing for the subtle nuances of Messrs. Moe, Larry and Curly I will admit to being reminded of the famous Tallulah Bankhead quip, "There's less to this than meets the eye."

It's a heady little trick the trio of Reza (playwright), Christopher Hampton (translating from her French original) and Matthew Warchus (director) have pulled off before with Art and Life (x) 3, drawing me in with an interesting premise but inevitably leaving me too bored to be disappointed.  Here the nemesis of the bourgeoisie (defined in this American version as sensitive female intellectuals and their oafish alpha-male spouses) shows us that no matter how civilized we think we may be, there's always the beat, beat, beat of the tom-tom (actually provided by composer Gary Yershon and sound designers Simon Baker/Christopher Cronin) like a voice within us that keeps repeating, "Me, me, me."

Set and costume designer Mark Thompson depicts the Brooklyn living room of Michael and Veronica Novick (James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden) with a free-standing cave-like wall placed in front of a stage-engulfing blood-red backdrop.  Books and earth tones are all over the place.  Their guests are Alan and Annette Raleigh (Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis), parents of the 11-year-old lad who busted two of the Novick's 11-year-old son's teeth in a playground skirmish.  Appropriately, as we'll soon see, the deed was done with that most primitive of weapons, a stick.

Strangers to each other, the two couples go through the niceties of discussing the situation like civilized Brooklynites, though each has their own take on the situation.  High-powered lawyer Alan, who spends most of the evening taking calls on his cell, thinks it's just healthy male aggression in action while his wife Hope feels that formal apologies and reparations can cleanly settle the matter.  Guy's guy Michael figures the boys can work things out themselves but Veronica, an author and historian sees the event in the same socio-economic terms that led to genocide in Darfur.

And then those darn tom-toms just bring out the ol' primal urges that reduce grown-up outer-boroughers to childish, self-centered animals.  It starts with a sly comment here and a nasty retort there, but the next thing you know someone's puking on an out-of-print Oscar Kokoschka catalogue and suddenly, there are no rules!!, leaving no cell phone, tulip arrangement or hamster safe from Reza's plot-manipulating path of destruction.  It's too much, too quickly and even at 90 minutes it goes on for far too long.

But Warchus stages the farcical ballet with raucous kineticism and varying rhythms that spark things up a bit and his fully committed cast work admirably as an ensemble; each honing in on specific quirks and mannerisms that fuel their respective meltdowns.  Unfortunately, watching the fine craft of the actors on stage is far more interesting than caring about the characters; particularly when it comes to Marcia Gay Harden, whose skills have been reduced to displays of shrillness and athleticism.

With all that said, there's no doubt in my mind that after a successful Broadway run this one-set four-character comedy will be making people laugh in many, many regional and amateur productions for years to come, as there is certainly an audience perfectly eager to pay good money to watch upper middle class snobs beating up on one another.  If there wasn't, the National Hockey League would have folded decades ago.

Photos by Joan Marcus:  Top: Marcia Gay Harden, James Gandolfini, Hope Davis and Jeff Daniels; Bottom: Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, Jeff Daniels and James Gandolfini

With a score including such enduring musical numbers as "Let the Sunshine In," "Aquarius," "Hair" and "Good Morning Starshine," Hair depicts the the birth of a cultural movement in the 60's and 70's that changed America forever: the musical follows a group of hopeful, free-spirited young people who advocate a lifestyle of pacifism and free-love in a society riddled with intolerance and brutality during the Vietnam War. As they explore sexual identity, challenge racism, experiment with drugs and burn draft cards, the "tribe" in Hair creates an irresistable message of 'hope' that continues to resonate with audiences 40 years later. This acclaimed production played Central Park last summer.

Ben Brantley, NY Times: "They're tearing down the house in the production that opened on Tuesday night at the Al Hirschfeld Theater. And any theatergoer with a pulse will find it hard to resist their invitation to join the demolition crew. This emotionally rich revival of "The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical" from 1967 delivers what Broadway otherwise hasn't felt this season: the intense, unadulterated joy and anguish of that bi-polar state called youth."

Elysa Gardner, USA Today: "The new Public Theater revival ( * * * * out of four), which opened Tuesday at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, not only avoids potential obstacles but finds a resonance in Hair beyond any parallels between the turbulent '60s and our own troubled times. What director Diane Paulus and her flawless cast have achieved is a testament to the indomitability and transience of youth, with all the blissful exuberance and aching poignance that entails."

Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press: ""Hair," the legendary 1960s American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, has made the jump from a summer Central Park engagement to Broadway with all its exuberance intact - and more."

David Rooney, Variety: "With its alfresco setting and the penetrating echoes of its countercultural themes during an election year in which political disenchantment became endemic, the Public Theater's revival of "Hair" last summer in Central Park was a unique experience. So shifting it indoors could only dim the thrill, right? Wrong. The enhanced production now at the Al Hirschfeld is sharper, fuller and even more emotionally charged. Director Diane Paulus and her prodigiously talented cast connect with the material in ways that cut right to the 1967 rock musical's heart, generating tremendous energy that radiates to the rafters."

Robert Feldberg, Bergen Record: ""Hair" might not have the power to shock or to liberate that it did 41 years ago, but the exuberant revival of the iconic rock musical gives Broadway a welcome jolt of energy. It's also lots of fun."

More Reviews to Come in the AM!