When Parents Wrestle With Words: GOD OF CARNAGE

French playwright Yasmina Reza brings her latest play, GOD OF CARNAGE, to Broadway under the direction of Matthew Warchus, who has already brought three of her plays to New York over the last decade. It is again translated by longtime British collaborator, Christopher Hampton. Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, and Marcia Gay Harden will star, with previews beginning on February 28 at the Bernard Jacobs Theatre (242 West 45 Street) and officially opening on March 22. God of Carnage is what press notes describe as "a comedy of manners without the manners. The play deals with the aftermath of a playground altercation between two boys and what happens when their parents meet to talk about it".

Broadwayworld.com guest correspondent Michael Zlabinger had the chance to sit down with the cast, and hear what they had to say about Reza's latest exploration of parenting and how language more often than not can polarize us rather than bond.

Rezas's work seems to always teeter on the edge of tragedy and comedy. Characters careen on a collision course with the fragile social structure they are meant to squeeze in to. This time, with God of Carnage, the collision is between two sets of parents who are forced to deal with the touchy subject of their adolescent sons having been in a fight. And, like an accident, you don't know whether to rubber neck or to wince away in disbelief.

This play is a true ensemble piece, beginning and ending with all four actors on stage. And with its premise dealing with parenting, and more specifically around parents dealing with one another, it came as no surprise that the cast has used their real life roles as parents to fuel their creative process. "I think that's one of the things that makes it so audience-friendly and so funny," Jeff Daniels shares, "You get two sets of parents who are going to talk about an incident that happened between their respective eleven year old boys and as a parent myself, there's just no way that this can end well. Parents have this thing when it comes to their child, especially nowadays, parents are so involved in their children's lives. I've had this conversation with my wife, ‘Call [another parent] up and tell her if I want her advice on parenting I'll ask her for it.' Don't do that. Don't parent someone else's child. And that's what Yasmina does and it's just hysterical."

Throughout the interview, it was apparent that the actors have seen first hand the challenges of resolving a child's actions. "We do all have children," Marcia Gay Harden says, "and there could be nothing more tense than two parents who sort of know each other through the school, but their kids have had this problem, and everyone's on their best behavior to discuss this because they want to do the right thing. We don't want to be like the children, we want to be grown ups. And in the process, we all unravel and the truer we are to the unraveling, the funnier it gets."

Considering that the story does take some dramatic turns in its initial stage of politeness, it seems the parent's own experiences in school seem to subtly affect their level of detachment as well. "You're involved a lot more in everything about your child," James Gandolfini explains, "I remember when going to my son's school, and they ask you a lot to go to the school and I think that's good, but in the beginning it takes a little getting used to. Especially if you [as the parent] weren't thrilled about school in the beginning, you break into a sweat just being around the lockers. This is the way it is now. You're so involved in your child's life and this is what comes from it. I can't imagine my parents meeting another set of parents like this."

It was quite clear that this personal experience of parenting is only going to bring more immediacy and authenticity to their work. "You can tell we [as the actors] all have children, because we are completely connected to what's going on," confessed Marcia Gay Harden.

The specificity in language has always played an important role in Reza's work. Whether it's the wrestling of semantics between old friends or the shackling effect of conforming to a particular niche of society, words are something that all of Reza's characters are undone by. It seems that underneath the agreements and vocabulary of a society, there can then brood an animal need to express one's self without words, regardless of how irrational or unsuitable it may be.

Hope Davis had an insight on how that can then be inherited (or resisted) by the child. "Especially these days when children are really encouraged to ‘use their words,' you hear some mother telling her two year old that on the playground when they see them pitching sand at somebody. When that in fact is not a child's first instinct, or of any age, and we really expect children to rise above that type of physical behavior and it's just not who they are, and it's not who we are at the core. It's still in there, that feeling of ‘If you wrong me, I'm gonna bash you over the head and put you to sleep.'"

So then the question lies whether to act upon one's impulses or not. And it's clear in Reza's writing that the pauses speak for themselves. Reza has felt the gaps in dialogue are just as much a part of the story as the words, in the way that Pinter had made so famous. Reza said once in an interview, "Most writers don't know that actors are never better than in the pauses or in the subtext. They give the actors too many words. Writers who've never acted tend to write 'full up.' All the writers who have flat spots and empty places in their dialogue are writers who've been on stage, like Pinter. In a play, words are parentheses to the silences. They're useful for the actors, but only that; they aren't the whole story." In fact, Reza has even been known to not mark silences but, as in The Unexpected Man, explains in the beginning of the script that it's expected that the actors playing the parts will find them in rehearsal. Hope Davis remarked, "That is very true of our play. There are some very powerful and strange silences and it's clear that that's a tool of hers, and that's something that is very helpful...which is a natural thing when two couples who don't know one another get together and try to figure a way to be polite." 

The rhythm and life of her words and silences seem to have an elasticity to them, since each country that produces her plays finds a different mood as well as a public's response. In America, as well as England, there seems to be more humor that comes to life. And Reza has been known to struggle with how it carries over in translation. In 1999, she told The Los Angeles Times, "I would like to see them laugh at the right moments." A year later, she told another journalist, "Laughter is always a problem and is very dangerous. The way people laugh changes the way you see a play. A very profound play may seem very light. My plays have always been described as comedy but I think they're tragedy. They are funny tragedy, but they are tragedy. Maybe it's a new genre." And it sounds like God of Carnage will again walk this fine line between tragedy and comedy. On producing her plays in America, Reza said quite flatteringly, "American English is much closer to French than British English is. English is a beautiful language, but in England it's very formal and doesn't allow invention. American English is informal, keen to take influences, to invent words, just as I write in French." Director Matthew Warchus has had the distinct opportunity to work on four of her plays in London and then in New York and experience the subtle and not-so-subtle differences between the two cultures.

Marcia Gay Harden explained that the care in transferring this play to a New York setting was no exception, "Yasmina Reza and Christopher Hampton have taken great care to bring it to America. And the wonderful journey for all of us has been how to not reduce the language to something americanized...to use the beauty of the language but maintain its familiarity so people don't feel a distance to it." In fact, according to Hope Davis, there are some exciting advantages with working on a French play in translation, "As Americans, our curse words are just not as interesting. And there are a lot fewer of them. We just have those couple that we use over and over again. And the French seem to have a lot more colorful ways of saying certain things." But considering that this American cast is working with a British translation that was produced in London's West End, some small changes have been made like "Shall I get you a drink?" was changed to, "Would you like a drink?" Jeff Daniels said the small changes were, "Just stuff that's a little less English. But universally, the characters are the same."

With all four actors being seasoned film and television stars, they are also no strangers to the stage. Hope Davis was last seen in Spinning Into Butter at The Lincoln Center Theater, Jeff Daniels was seen in Blackbird at the Manhattan Theatre Club, Marcia Gay Harden was last seen in Angels In America on Broadway, and James Gandolfini was last seen in On The Waterfront on Broadway. And it was apparent that a return to the New York stage was another impetus that drew them to this project. Jeff Daniels said plainly, "I was the last one to come on board, and to work with [these actors]...everyone here can bring it. We have all been in projects where you had to Make Up For something, where you were acting for two people. It's not the case on this. Everybody's going to arrive at that first preview and everybody's going to bring it every night. And we knew that going in with the playwright, the director and the cast." With previews just a day away, New York audiences should anticipate a very powerful evening in the theater.

GOD OF CARNAGE will be produced by Robert Fox, David Pugh & Dafydd Rogers, Stuart Thompson, Scott Rudin, and The Shubert Organization. The play comes to Broadway after a sold-out run in London's West End in 2008.