God of Carnage - Lyric Hammersmith

[Steve]

I enjoyed today's matinee.

This cynical play, about two sets of apparently genteel parents, who meet up after the kid of one has knocked two teeth out of the kid of the other, is still funny.

Martin Hutson gets the most laughs in the old Ken Stott role of a husband who is more interested in placating the other parents than defending his kid or his wife.

Some spoilers follow. . .

This is not as well done as the original production, principally because Freema Agyeman goes too far too fast. Her character, Veronica, has the most pretensions to civility, but Agyeman is already losing it from the get-go. It's like she's already at 90 percent wired at the beginning, so her journey to 100 percent wired doesn't carry the fear, anticipation and curiosity that it should. By contrast, in the West End production, you'd have thought that butter wouldn't melt in Janet McTeer's mouth at the start of the play, so her journey from zero to a hundred was shatteringly frightening and funny.

That said, Martin Hutson is a gem as Veronica's husband, Michael, utterly credible as the ultimate ingratiator, his gurning, grinning, desperate people pleasing, funny in and of itself, given his wife's massive passive aggression towards him, collapsing degree by hilarious degree into atavism, maximising every laugh.

If Hutson is the funniest on stage, Dinita Gohil is the most believable, in the old Tamsin Grieg role, coming across as warm, real, genuine and relatable. In this respect, she is probably even better casting than Greig, as you expected Greig to be funny (she always is), whereas Gohil's Annette seems utterly normal and reasonable, until she suddenly, credibly, hilariously isn't.

In the old Ralph Fiennes role, Alan, ostensibly the least civilised, most boorish character on stage, who is almost proud of his son's violence, Ariyon Bakare is warmer than the ice cold, acquiline, gangsterish Fiennes, which initially seems a mistake, given his character's role in the proceedings, but it does allow you to like him a little bit, which sucks you into his worldview more effectively.

Ultimately, the West End production remains unsurpassed, but this revival demonstrates that the play can still get laughs even if it feels less shocking.

It can't possibly feel as shocking because the Gods of Carnage are so rampant on social media, with everyone tearing into everyone else so publicly, that absolutely nobody thinks human beings are naturally civilised anymore lol.

3 and a half stars of jaded laughs from me.

Running time was 95 minutes straight through.

[tmesis]

I didn’t see the original production and I was a little disappointed by this. I didn’t find any of the characters very believable or likeable so this felt like a pretty interminable 95 minutes, not helped at the matinee by being very sweaty in the stalls.

[bobby]

I remember really enjoying the original London production in 2008, but I mean that cast would take some beating, directed by Matthew Warchus, and starring Ralph Fiennes, Tamsin Greig, Janet McTeer and Ken Stott.

[imstillhere]

I did not see the original West End production but I caught this one and thought Nicholai La Barrie's production was really really poor.

All the performances feel exaggerated and hammy and La Barrie just does not have the skill to ride this wave. He doesn’t trust how much work the text in this play does and is utterly incapable of finding its rhythm and detail, everything feels tryhard, broad yet dull. This play deserves a much better revival in London and it’s a shame that this is the production we are getting.

[foxa]

I'm going to see this next weekend (tempted by the Lyric's 3 productions for 2 deal.) I saw and very much liked the original production and honestly thought it was a pretty cast iron script, hard to mess up, So disappointing to hear it's not hitting right.

[mrbarnaby]

I think the point is that this play isn’t good enough to do today without stars in it. It isn’t strong enough to stand up to scrutiny as a play and the only reason to do it, is to cast famous people in the 4 roles.

[talkingheads]

Watching the film of this was enough for me. Good dialogue, and I doubt we'd ever get a cast as good as Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly onstage, but not one I'd particularly want to sit through at the theatre.

[foxa]

We enjoyed this at the matinee yesterday.The direcion wasn't as well-shaped as in the West End - Steve makes a good point about some of the characters being too far down the journey too quickly (though Freema Agyeman made me laugh quite a bit) and there was a section about 3/4's of the way through where it suddenly went a bit baggy.But I would still recommend it as a fun theatre trip. Gohil is very good. The Lyric Hammersmith is looking great: lots of good eating/drinking options,the tickets were good value, liked the sound design and there was enough in the script that was still relevant/interesting. Though we didn't try them, noticed the bar was offering various sharing options, one of them including clafloutis (as mentioned in the script.)

[jr]

Reading the comments here, I wasn't expecting much from this production. I had seen the film and a Spanish production and both were quite different, so I was curious about this one.

I did like it. I think the acting was quite good and there was good chemistry among them. I specially liked Dinita Gohil, she makes the character evolve, the others are more one note but still good with Freema Agyeman getting most of the laughs.

Though it is not perfect and I think there are two main problems with this production. Firstly, the direction, specially for the first half hour, slow pace and very plain; at other times the comedy bits fall flat. Secondly, the revolving set. I did not see the point of it and it made me miss two key moments in the play: in one I have the mask directly in front of my face; in the other one a sofa blocked completely the vision at the back of the stage. You would think that directors would worry that audience could not see what's going on on the stage?

Overall it was a good night out, the theatre was almost full and the audience had a good time. That's far more that what you get in many West End shows.

[david]

A really mixed bag for me at tonight’s trip to Hammersmith. A fun show to watch with some nice bits of comedy that made me laugh and kept me entertained, but I’m not sure the writing stood up all that well. There seemed to be quite a few ideas going on (the kids fight being the main one, along with the side plot of the hamster as well as the drugs strand) that by the end whilst delivering some great LOL moments, they didn’t get fully resolved satisfactorily or I really didn’t see the point in including it - the dugs plot particularly.

I got more out of the performances than the writing itself. I found Martin Hutinson the standout performance tonight though Freema Agyman was also very funny.

The set from designer Lily Arnold was an interesting one, I get that the circular design was meant to represent a gladiatorial arena where the events play out though I did question why there was a need for the slow revolve for the entire time. I didn’t think the play needed it and quite honestly at times was frustrating when you had the mask or the back of the sofa or the mask in full blocking the actors.

As a straight through play it worked as having an interval I think wouldn’t have worked with the flow and had the great bonus of an early finish tonight. Though pacing wise, a bit of rollercoaster ride. A slow start before hitting the accelerator.

The audience enjoyed the show which plenty of positive feedback from conversations I overheard at the end. For me whilst a fun night out, if I lived locally, I wouldn’t be booking for a revisit.