Still widely known as Cora Crawley in TV’s Downton Abbey, Elizabeth McGovern is on cracking comic form in a fine Bath revival of Yasmina Reza’s God Of Carnage.
What a play it is: 80 minutes that pierce the hides of its four ageing yuppies. Merciless. Salty. Devastatingly true.
Lindsay Posner’s production is top-class stuff, well cast and performed like quick tennis. Miss McGovern plays fussy, politically correct Veronica, a metropolitan whose 11-year-old son has been attacked by a classmate. We never see the boys.
Elizabeth McGovern/Veronica IN Yasmina Reza’s God Of Carnage
The whole play is set in Veronica’s chic drawing room where she and her more rough-round-the-edges husband Michael (Nigel Lindsay) are talking to the parents of their son’s attacker.
There follows a classic encounter of modern manners, initially awkward but polite as the two sets of parents try to establish whether Freddy now realises he was wrong to have whacked Henry and broken two of his teeth.
But Freddy’s father (Ralf Little) is a lawyer, and therefore twitchy about any acceptance of blame. The ruffian’s mother (Amanda Abbington) is ‘in wealth management’ and has a similarly keen sense of reputational damage.
One loose word here, one casual phrase there, and the parents are soon sparring like warring corporates, their earlier politeness yielding to brutal (sometimes sweary) insults.
Playwright Reza tears into the affectations, petty cruelties, vanities and sheer awfulness of so many modern professionals.
When not attacking the other couple, these marrieds fight one another, exposing marital infelicities, gender tensions, coded political messages and long-simmering resentments.
One moment the dads are squaring up to each other. The next they are allies against the women. You don’t know whether to laugh or shield your eyes.
God of Carnage is Winner of the Tony Award for Best Play and Olivier Award for Best New Comedy
The four actors make this show a joy. Miss McGovern shows a terrific gift for comedy. Mr Lindsay’s Michael, bluff and blowy, is the perfect foil.
Miss Abbington’s Annette has a projectile eruption and Mr Little’s Alan is a cocktail of guile and greed, constantly answering his mobile. If you have started to despair at modern British theatre’s pathetic failure to skewer the 21st century’s moneyed elite, this refreshing French modern classic shows how it should be done.
MORE predictably, North London’s Almeida (a nest of the sort of people satirised by Reza) is staging a politicised, badly acted, badly directed, faintly seedy American play.
Dance Nation tells the story of some schoolgirl ballet dancers (played by adults).
We’re talking sub-teen girls, here, yet this Arts Council-funded theatre revels in scenes where the language is frequently foul and the content occasionally sexual, with nudity.
In any properly meritocratic world, this rubbish would likely never have been staged, let alone won prizes. But who needs merit when you receive a fat Arts Council grant?
Linkhienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2018/09/07/countess-coras-hit-yuppie-war-quentin-letts-reviews-god-of-carnage/
Main photo article Still widely known as Cora Crawley in TV’s Downton Abbey, Elizabeth McGovern is on cracking comic form in a fine Bath revival of Yasmina Reza’s God Of Carnage.
What a play it is: 80 minutes that pierce the hides of its four ageing yuppies. Merciless. Salty. Devastatingly true.
Lindsay Posner’s pr...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/newpix/2018/09/07/00/4FCE110E00000578-0-image-a-1_1536278380944.jpg
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