god of carnage

Posted by dana at 11:29 am on Monday, June 29th, 2009.

Just when all you guys out there thought you were ready to get dragged back to the theater by your significant others after years of enduring the looming threat posed by The Vagina Monologues, now your patience will truly be put to the test, at least if your guy or girl is fascinated by psychology and especially the relationship variety. Introducing "God of Carnage," a play by Yasmina Reza that has been running at the Bernard Jacobs theater since the spring (girls, you might have a chance of getting the guys there by mentioning James Gandolfini's playing in the NYC version before mumbling through the rest of the four-actor, star-studded ensemble).

One  NYC-based relationship therapist we spoke to recently suggested this is "required  summer reading and viewing" for anyone in her field, although it is a far cry from  the uplifting summer blockbuster alternatives out there. The subject matter is a  complex one: not one but two couples' intrinsic marital and familial issues. The  play delves into the difficulty in maintaining healthy long-term relationships and  how to deal with the massive pain of intimacy that comes with this sometimes  treacherous territory.

What interested this relationship therapist the most was that the play attempted to tackle the analysis of two couples. Because counseling for even a single couple can be far more strenuous than one-on-one therapy: you've got two sets of expectations, two psyches, complicated communication patterns at play, and the therapist's approach all sitting in one room. And they're sometimes not alone–therapists can sense right from the beginning if there is a big elephant in the room, perhaps a woman or man with whom one or more parties have been having an affair, perhaps substance abuse, maybe the couples' mothers or fathers, the death of a child… all factors that have a real impact on these types of discussions.

Aside from the weighty subject matter to contend with, this play is worth it for the addictive, schadenfreude-like high of watching two seemingly picture-perfect, art-loving, environmentally-conscious, espresso-sipping Cobble Hil-based Brooklynites' marriages unravel (if you're into that, we'd highly recommend getting into NatGeo's Locked Up Abroad because that will make your lives seem much less pathetic, too) with a little help from Reza stirring the pot time and again. And the flawed character portrayals should be spot on, given the impeccable casting job here. So see it while you still can (through July 19th). Moonit's got this on our summer field trip list. That and maybe taking in the sounds and sites of the Jersey Shore, where we will examine animalistic mating rituals among inebriated and scantily-clothed Gen Yers in post-modern coastal America.