Piece of Work Productions have produced another classy and stylish piece of professional theatre in the suburbs. Operating out of Howick’s Uxbridge Centre, the company have plumped for an award-winning modern comedy, after successful seasons of The Glass Menagerie and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged).

Yasmina Reza’s God Of Carnage play wowed London, Broadway and was taken to heart by all professional companies round the world; it has now started on the am-dram circuit but somewhere along the line I always missed it. Watching it tonight (in a co-op production) you can see why it appeals. It has something of us all in it and something for everyone.

The four adults, brought together to discuss their sons’ argument and subsequent fight, represent us in various degrees of hostility, repentance, shame, anger and fairness. They are Everyparent. Each character goes from A to Z, from reactive to proactive, in their attempt to fight for their child, husband/wife, and way of life.

It can be likened to a mathematical equation in that every conceivable combination is tried. Each character sides with one in turn, against another, and all display the aforementioned emotions at each twist.

But this is no boring, clinical study of a show. This is biting satire that shows each and every one of us in an all too scary mirror. Being a father of three year olds I saw myself up there in a few years time. Oh, dear me.

Director Anton Bentley has staged the play simply and without fuss, as the script dictates. In the cavernous stage space the Uxbridge offers the cast of four move with certainty around the set, though at times it feels as if moves are carried out with too much precision in finding their next position.

As high as it is wide, the stage is unforgiving and the cast do well to throw the script out to us, though the first five minutes were lost in the lofty rafters, as they found their feet in front of an audience.

It is interesting to note that Director Bentley has decided to keep the play in its original French location, which does jar slightly with place and character names, keeping us one step away from the action. The Broadway production changed names and locale to fit where they were and I can’t see any reason why the script cannot be adapted to New Zealand.

Carleena Walsh and Terry Hooper, as rich well-to-do couple Annette and Alain, display all the charms of money and social climbing, each emotion worn entirely in their bank balance.

Hooper manages to instil every line with Alain’s lack of emotion, whilst displaying a savage and cruel dog-eat-dog attitude towards everything in life from children through to death.

Wife Annette is slightly more reserved but when provoked proves she has more bite than bark. Walsh manages to hold herself up and beyond the other couple even in the throws of a vomiting fit, which, I have to say, is the best, without doubt, I have seen on stage. Again delivered without fuss, set up or fanfare Walsh, builds up to the episode and comes through it with as much dignity as she entered it. That scene I would like to see again.

More down to earth, but still barking mad, couple Michel and Veronique are played more moderately by Stuart Bradbury and Fiona Bailey. Allowing Walsh and Hooper to occupy the high and deep range respectively, they settle for the middle ground but never once loose their point or argument.

Bradbury at times was slightly hard to hear, the wing space being too large for subtlety but his quiet moment on the couch whilst the other three argue around him is priceless. 

Bailey’s hyper-sensitive Veronique is prissy, cold and not a woman you take to, though you do raise a cheer when she manages to bite back at Ronnie.

Only running for a week, this is another example that quality professional theatre is being produced in the suburbs and we don’t have to pay a fortune in parking to see it. Timing was slightly out of kilter in front of the opening night audience and it did look as if the cast were waiting for laughs in some places where none came. Let the audience do the work and they’ll tell you when they want a pause.

Just under an hour and a half, with no interval, this is a gentle night out, with great performances from a gem of a theatre company. 

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