How far should our politeness stretch when we’re in a situation we don’t want to be in? When you’re in a meeting you don’t particularly care about, with people you don’t particularly care about, how hard do you have to pretend? Do you think the other people are pretending too?
These are the questions tackled by “God of Carnage” at LTV Studios in Wainscott by way of the Playwrights’ Theatre of East Hampton in association with Kassar Productions. The play, written in French by Yasmina Reza in 2008 and translated to English by Christopher Hampton, premiered on Broadway in 2009.
On its face, it is about two couples meeting because one child hurt another in a park in Brooklyn, but the veneer of niceties quickly falls away as the adults revert to employing childish barbs themselves. The meeting between the couples goes so sideways that eventually they begin to question why they’re even speaking in the first place: Is it retribution, or are they just going through the motions of what they think is expected?
The audience is shoved right into the uncomfortable affair as John Kroft, the production’s director, elected to stage it in the round, so the audience surrounds the actors at all times, acting as walls they are trapped inside. Being on the same level in this way allows for an intimate experience: You’re in the room with the couples as they struggle with small talk or try not to make eye contact.
Onstage are Rachel Feldman and Joe Pallister as Annette and Alan Raleigh, who are at first embarrassed that their son hit another child in the face with a stick -- that is, when Alan is not off answering his phone -- and they are doing their best to make up for it. Meanwhile, Michael and Veronica Novak, played by Edward Kassar, who is also a producer, and Daniela Mastropietro, want to be perfect hosts at the same time that they seek justice for their son, who lost teeth from the strike.
At least that’s what Veronica wants; Michael often seems more concerned with just getting through the afternoon. And that idea is central: How much do we really care? This is exemplified by the fact that Alan answers what seems like an endless stream of phone calls from his law office with no consideration that he is in someone else’s home.
The play would not work without the chemistry among the four actors. There is an iciness in the beginning that turns to an eruption, and any sense of loyalty or politeness is gone. The couples have their own sides, then the men and the women take each other’s sides, and then seemingly no one is on anybody’s side.
It is indeed carnage, human nature at its most raw in a Brooklyn apartment. It will make you laugh, and certainly make you uncomfortable, but it will also make you appreciate some of the absurdities of adult life. Children do stupid things like calling each other names and hitting each other, and adults like to think they’re above that.
In a good way, the play reminded me of Jean-Paul Sartre’s “No Exit.” Instead of the takeaway that hell is other people, however, “God of Carnage” shows how adults’ buttons can be pushed just as easily as children’s, and that no one really grows out of their instinctive childishness, no matter how much they may want to pretend.
“God of Carnage,” assistant directed by Anita Boyer and executive produced by Josh Gladstone, creative director of LTV Studios, runs through Sunday, with performances today, tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. and a matinee on Saturday at 2. Tickets at ltveh.org are $25 in advance. They are $30 at the door, and $15 for students. V.I.P. tickets with a reserved cafe table and a drink included are $60.
