San Jose Rep Artistic Director Rick Lombardo's staging proves it doesn't need big names to get its full quotient of laughs.Ī co-production with Arizona Theatre Company, where Lombardo staged it with the same cast last fall, this is the first of what's turned out to be a twofold Bay Area premiere ( Marin Theatre Company mounts its own version in May).
Star-studded casts certainly didn't hurt its popular runs in Paris (with Isabelle Huppert), London ( Ralph Fiennes, Janet McTeer) and on Broadway ( James Gandolfini, Marcia Gay Harden). But it's been a certified hit onstage (if not in Roman Polanski's film version), taking the Olivier and Tony best-play awards in London and New York. Reza's ploy of cracking open - make that exploding - the civilized veneer of parents trying to have a grown-up discussion about a playground fight between their 11-year-old sons doesn't do much more than exploit that idea to the fullest. Comedy of manners turns into full-blown farce at the hands of Yasmina Reza in "God of Carnage." That's a bit disappointing after savoring the French playwright's lighter and more piercing touch in plays like "Art" and "The Unexpected Man." But it can be very funny in the no-holds-barred version now at San Jose Repertory Theatre.Īdults behaving like spoiled children has been a pretty surefire gambit for comedy at least since Aristophanes.