Chatting With The Stars Of Broadway's "God of Carnage"

 

(coming soon)
 

Three of the four stars of Broadway’s “God of Carnage”, Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, and Marcia Gay Harden, recently talked with Joan Hamburg on The Joan Hamburg Show about working on the Tony Award winning play.  The 90-minute no intermission show is currently playing at the Bernard Jacobs Theater.

 

“God of Carnage” is about two yuppie couples, Jeff Daniels and Hope Davis, and Marcia Gay Harden and James Gandolfini, who come together to discuss a fight which happened on the school playground. Daniels and Davis’s son beat up Harden and Gandolfini’s son, and the two couples come together to talk about a resolution to the situation.

 

Jeff Daniels plays a lawyer, who “…starts[s] off bad and then…get[s] worse”. His cell phone is glued to his ear, and even his wife says, “there’s nothing worse than a cell phone”. They never offer an apology to the other couple for their son’s misdeed. Harden plays the “do-gooder” of the show. A righteous woman who is married to James Gandolfinfi, a man in the hardware business. At some point, she snaps, and is the first to throw the punches. From there on, the play really takes off.

 

The play is extremely dark, yet takes on a slightly different color because of the humor. When the actors first read the script, they thought it a, “dark dissertation on human nature”, but when they brought it in front of an audience, especially an audience, they realized how truly funny it was. Marcia Gay Harden compares the play to a baseball game, saying that, “you’re whipping it out there”, especially when rum becomes involved and the couples’ arguments become intensified.

 

The performances of all of the actors are absolutely superb, and each actor claims that they love working with one another. Jeff Daniels was the last to be attached to the project, but says that he had no problem committing because, “…it was such a great group”. Davis and Harden, having worked together four times prior, were excited to finally develop an intimate relationship as they spent their nights battling it out on stage.

 

Harden says that the play points out the importance of words and how one word can easily set off a firestorm, as her character finds out. Her character chooses one particular word at the beginning of the play which sets off the whole argument between the couples. “Words can destroy a family, [and] words can bring a family together,” she says. Harden also claims that the play addresses what connects us to other people, and what connects us to the meaning in our life.  

 

Audiences can watch the four actors battle it out at the Bernard Jacobs Theater, at 242 W 45^th Street. To purchase tickets, call 212-239-6200.