Whilst privately he is a controversial figure, the stars queue up for Roman Polanski. After 2010’s drama ‘The Ghost’, where Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor went head-to-head, four huge actors face off in stage adaptation ‘Carnage’.
Set in an apartment in New York, two sets of parents meet to clear the air after one couple’s child beats up the other’s with a stick, knocking out two teeth. Busy professional couple Nancy and Alan (Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz) would rather be anywhere than here; while Penelope and Michael (Jodie Foster and John C Reilly) passive aggressively try to gain justice for what they see as nothing short of a maiming of their child. As the afternoon drags on, tempers fray and a squabble between two school children becomes symbolic of much more- a clash of two cultures, and the growing resentment in both marriages.
The title of the piece is appropriate- not because it’s bad, far from it, but because it can be, at times, agonising to watch the niceties dissolve into a shouting match. Just as soon as things seem to have calmed down, an incendiary comment is made and your feet clench, thinking ‘here we go again’. The location- the front room of Penelope and Michael’s home, adds to the pressure-cooker tension and feeling of being stuck in this awkward situation. Some of the humour that made the play popular in its native France has been, perhaps, lost in translation, but the plot is merely an excuse for four Oscar winners (or rather three winners and one nominee in Reilly) duke it out.
The performances are all adept, but the wives far outshine the husbands. Winslet carefully tiptoes the line between apathy and anxiety as the unhappy wife; a polar opposite to Foster’s ‘touchy feely’ new age parent, who is equal parts odious and brilliant. The husbands are just as varied- Reilly playing Michael as a blasé, suppressed macho everyman; Waltz viewing the scene from afar as the businessman who would rather be tackling his company’s problems than his child’s.
Verbal mayhem ensues in a no holds barred acting equivalent of a dance off (act-off?). Polanski inspires some impressive performances, but lets himself down through never really alleviating the tension with some humour. Gripping, but an effort.
Released 3rd February
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