Original post at Book Rhapsody.

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How to be an adult

I’m not a fan of plays. I am amazed myself why I was compelled to read a review of this and borrow it. It’s either the review is too convincing or the play is too good. Or maybe I just like the sound of the title. Sometimes, we just pick our next reads without much thought, right?

This does not mean though that the play is a thoughtless piece of literature. It’s about these two pairs of parents who are trying to have an adult conversation regard More...

La cosa SCONVOLGENTE e incredibile di questo libro è che si svolge nell'arco di tre quarti d'ora scarsi e soprattutto solo all'interno di una stanza, con quattro personaggi. Stop.
Eppure.. Beh, è un esempio magnifico di dialettica, crudeltà e cinismo.
**Amore!**
Due coppie -gli Houllié e i Reille, tecnicamente perbene, si incontrano per discutere del 'fattaccio': Ferdinand Reille ha picchiato con un bastone Bruno Houllié. Entrambi sono bambini di 11 anni.
I genitori di entrambi dapprima si mostrano More...

La convivenza (in)civile

Uno psicodramma, una commedia noir, un dramma da camera: "Il dio del massacro", da cui Roman Polansky ha preso lo spunto per realizzare l'acclamatissimo "Carnage", è tutto questo.
In poche pagine, questa esile piéce teatrale, riassume tutto quello che spesso si agita dentro ciascuno di noi mascherato quotidianamente da perbenismo, celato dietro atteggiamenti radical chic, protetto dalla falsità delle maschere che ogni giorno indossiamo per proteggere il quieto vivere, ma c More...

Reread April 2012

The God of Carnage doesn’t quite reach the dizzy heights of Reza’s Art, a lovely play about men’s friendships, their emotional struggles for shared respect, and a possibly overpriced art masterpiece – “barely perceptible white diagonal lines” on a white background. Art had a sense of arc, of truth that hadn’t been yet spoken. The characters were relatable but still individual and unusual.

The God of Carnage still has Reza’s snappy dialogue; this one was translated from the origin More...

Leggere saggi mattoni sulla civiltà e il suo declino è noioso, anche se il lettore penserà dipenda da mattone a mattone. Lo psicodramma della Reza al contrario non ha niente di noioso, forse qualcosa di caustico, sarcastico, imprevedibile e amaro, ma di noioso nulla. Come bere una soda. O forse una coca cola, la stessa che Véronique Houllié offre ad Annette Reille per aiutarla con i suoi problemi di bile. Immaginate un salotto, nessun realismo, nessun elemento inutile. Due mazzi di tulipani e un More...

Reading a script's always a potential disappointment, like consuming a recipe instead of the cake. Certain forms--an exhilirating theatrical performance, a delirious action film--flatten out on the page. I'm not sure I want, for instance, to read what Chow-Yun Fat and John Woo were building from to end up here; I just want to go there. And reading reviews of this play's Broadway staging, with Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden, and James Gandolfini.... maybe I just really wanted to go t More...

As a play I think this is constructed really well. There's really only one thing I don't understand its dramatic function (when Annette vomits) and even then I half suspect that I do understand its purpose--to get Annette and Alain out of the room so that Michel and Veronique can talk about them behind their backs. But other than that, the play swirls around a set of recurring themes and ideas, all of which are deployed in really interesting ways as these characters try to tear one another down. More...

Yasmina Reza’s short play “The God of Carnage” is a fascinating, character-driven piece sprinkled with elements of absurdity. In many ways it is akin to Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” only the fighting between the characters in “Carnage” isn’t as pointed as it is in “Woolf,” but rather like that of a child who flails trying desperately to land a hit. The tension between the four characters is palpable on the page and I would be so interested to see what a corps of strong actors would More...

I was really disappointed by this play. It doesn't move, there is no resolution and doesn't seem to have a point. I felt like I wasted my time reading it. I have no idea how in the name of all that is theatrical that this piece has been nominated as Best New Play of the year by the Tony committee. I don't care how well it's directed or performed the piece itself is atrocious. Save your money-don't read it and don't see it!

"You see, Veronique, I believe in the god of carnage. He has ruled, uninterruptedly, since the dawn of time." - Alain

It has been an enduring quality of humanity to be always just one step away from violence and barbarity. As The Joker once said in The Dark Knight, "Madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push." It is no wonder then that even the most stoic of individuals can be reduced to a Neanderthal if the said individual's is pushed in the right way. So long dignified More...

I'm going to sound like such a snob but this play left me so unsatisfied. It felt like Albee-lite, with no real purpose or resolution to the unfolding chaos. The characters never evolved beyond their established archetypes and the stereotypical markers of power and gender (men are brutes and like war! Women are bitches!) didn't evolve to give us any deeper insight other than "Adults can be so childish." I imagine it would be very entertaining to see performed, and I must keep in mind how differe More...

First let me tell how much I enjoy my French online teaching! I use skype, which allows me to have students form all over the world.
I particularly enjoy the advanced to nearly fluent students: apart from the necessaru grammatical exercises, we either watch French videos together and talk on them, or share about the latest movies we saw or books we read.

One day, R. shared with me her passion for French plays, and even sent me an efile of the latest she had read. So I read it as well, and then we More...

Oh LOVE this play. When my Study Abroad group assigned 'God of Carnage' on the contemporary list of plays that we would be seeing I was excited for two reasons
1. I was ecstatic about seeing Ralph Fiennes as I knew I would be. (Lord Voldermort!)
2. I had recently seen & loved 'Art' by Yasmina Reza @ USF and was intrigued if I would enjoy more of her work.

I enjoyed the process of learning more of this 'perfectionist playwright' and discussing the 'God of Carnage' that each of us worship within More...

Uno scomodo inquilino

In tutti noi risiede il dio del massacro, resta assopito a lungo nelle cosiddette persone “civili”, per essere svegliato ed innervosito dagli eventi che viviamo o che sono vissuti dai nostri cari. Ci rende suscettibili e basta anche una sola parola, magari detta non intenzionalmente in una “pacifica” conversazione per uscire fuori, e rivelare nello sfogo ciò che realmente proviamo, celato per non rovinare quel già fragile equilibrio che a stento siamo riusciti a creare. C More...

I'd heard the buzz about this play, and knew I'd never make it to New York to see the big stars on stage – luckily Faber's made it available in a dainty paperback. I took it with me to Peet's a few Saturdays ago and read it as I sipped my coffee – it's only 67 pages. Short but satisfying! Reza tells the tale of two marriages, four intelligent cultured people who more or less ravage everything between them in the space of a conversation. I suppose it's considered "serious" drama, but I was laughi More...

Done reading the play. It is pretty sarcastic showing people's hypocrisy: how they act and how they are in reality. It's pretty interesting in term of being realize into a production. Reading it alone will be too blah since they aren't many actions or literary quality in it though there are some clever (but obvious) metaphors and symbolisms in it. In term of acting, the female roles are pretty challenging to play. I can't wait to be in the full production as the stage manager. And hopefully I'll More...

Two couple come together for the purpose of having a "civilized discussion" about an act of violence that occurred between their sons. But what, finally, is "civilization"? Is it a mere sham? Or, although real, does it carry us away from our natural human impulses? Does civilization resolve anything in the end?

How does the behavior of "grownups" differ from the rough schoolyard savagery of children? Are they the same? And do the formalities of the former merely disguise the brutality of the latt More...

A terrific play! It is a quick, spirited argument between two couples that is richly layered and enormously entertaining. The only complaint I have is that it doesn't seem to have much of a premise; or, if it does, the premise is deeply obscured by the dialectical fireworks. It's fun to read and I can only assume that it is fun to watch (I've never seen a production). It recently received a Broadway treatment, but I suspect that a second act would have probably netted it a bevy of additional rew More...

Seeing this play in action is much better than reading it, especially since the latest American version is much saucier with its language (in other words, the F-word is used more often). Most impressive of all is how British director Matthew Warchus uses movement, space, and long pauses to pace the dialogue written by Yasmine Reza (and more importantly, humorously interpreted by Christopher Hampton). Read the play if you must, but get to NYC and SEE IT before it gets sent to the community theate More...

I was introduced to this play by the 2011 film Carnage, a very faithful adaptation directed by Roman Polanski. Of course, this means my review should be taken with a grain of salt; I’ve never seen God Of Carnage onstage, so I’ve never witnessed it as it is truly meant to be. But its inherent greatness can be attested to by my having eagerly plowed through the playbook twice in three days, especially considering that I normally read a play about once a decade.

The story seems simple enough: one ki More...

The straight French to English translation does come off as pretty pompous. Who knew that a plumbing hardware middleman could even be in that category, but there it is. Quite interested to see how the screenplay for Polanski's New York setting has been tweaked, and if it was derived from the Broadway version or the original.

One doesn't feel so bad reading the play - you can do it in an hour, so it's not like your day has been totally set back by having to imagine four adults flinging poo at eac More...

I saw this three years ago in the West End. What I remembered most clearly was the impressive vomiting scene! But this is an interesting play about two very dysfunctional couples. However, none of the characters are actually likeable or interesting in themselves and the play doesn't really have a whole lot to say, other than politeness is really a veneer, and I'm sure that's been said before and better. I remembered it as being a bit more substantial in the theatre, but here it really is a one a More...

I'm adding a star to this review as I just saw the play and think it does better on stage than it does on the page. This may, of course, be universally true of all good plays (there are some bad ones that make excellent reading), but this play in particular requires a fair amount of physical byplay and nonverbal interaction. It's a good read, either way, and that's what this site is all about. Note: the less expensive acting edition follows the American practice of changing the French names of p More...

throughout the one-hour read i repeatedly cursed myself for seeing the film first. the "play" (it's more of a script really, written to be performed on stage rather than read) is good but it was sheer genius to adapt it for the screen. in the film the events are presented to the viewer at a hectic pace which contributes so much to the overall absurd and hilarity. the play does not offer itself to the reader in the same way. still, the absurdity is there, i just so wish i could have discovered it More...

I like how this play balances comedy and tragedy in a way that is very true to life. They exist side by side and even the greatest tragedies contain comedic elements and vice versa. As Dolly Parton says in Steel Magnolias: "Laughter through tears is my favourite emotion." I wanted to read this play before seeing a production of it tonight in Toronto. I really enjoyed how the play, a farce, cleverly reveals the thin line between civility and barbarity in the bourgeoisie. Clafouti, anyone?

Scripts are often challenging to read because they don't fully come to life until they are produced. I remember thinking "Who wants to see this piece of garbled trash on stage?" after reading "Top Girls", but was blown away by the production that I did see (of course, the quality of the production depends on the company assembled to put it on).

There are some scripts, however, that stand on their own as a good read to those of us that don't have a good imagination for bridging page to stage. This More...

اجرای این نمایش نامه را روی صحنه تئاتر شهر، با بازی اشکان خطیبی و چند بازیگر دیگر تماشا کردم. پیش از این، «زندگی در سه» را از رضا خوانده بودم و آن را نیز چندان دوست نداشتم. خدای کشتار نیز تکه ای از زندگی روزمره شخصیت ها و رویارویی آنان بر سر ستیزه بچه هایشان را بر می گفت و به تدریج، این رویارویی کوچک، ابعادی ژرف تر از خویشتن و اندیشه شخصیت ها را رو می کند. از دید من، حتّی آن بخش های ژرف و ناگفتنی های زندگی چهار شخصیت داستان، گیرا نبود.

Clever plot and funny dialogue for this play that deals with the compelling issue of violence. Two contrasting educated families who harbor in a 'safe' neighborhood deal with violence enacted by their sons. Each character has developed different devices to deal with the truth. i love the comic relief throughout to contrast the drama. Nice balancing act and a breeze to read. It should be a great discussion at my book club meeting.

It's never like this in the sitcoms! Two sets of parents meet to discuss what is to be done about the beating that one of their sons gave the other. In the process, many bad behaviors are revealed, but not of the kids, of the parents themselves. Sides shift, veiled threats are issued, drinking (and a little vomiting ensues. It's a powerful little piece of drama and dark comedy.

A play about what happens after two children have a physical altercation at a local playground and their parents meet up one evening to discuss the implications.

While reading this you hope reasonable people won't act and say the things like those in this theater drama piece but the further the story goes the characters become more believable - the writing is terrific and convincing and these characters slowly make you cringe with what the say and do to each other.