By Yasmina Reza Translated by Christopher Hampton Principal Funders Welcome Regional Funding
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season of By Yasmina Reza Translated by ChRisTopheR hampTon principAL funders welcome regional funding In 2000 Auckland Theatre her ability to drill down through entertainment and provocation. core funders Premier partners Company presented Yasmina the sophisticated veneer of Metro Magazine stood out from Reza’s first internationally her middle class characters to the start and we’re delighted successful play, ART. The reveal to us the pain, the anger, to have them on board as a winner of multiple awards in the fear or the disinterest they Premier Partner for the first France, Britain and the USA, spend their time disguising. time this year. ART was translated into 30 Like Chekhov, she is a Thanks to my sterling design languages and is estimated compassionate satirist, allowing team Rachael Walker and Nik to have grossed $US300 million us to see her characters Janiurek — and to our Senior at box offices around the world. strengths and weaknesses Stage Manager Fern Christie major supporters GOD OF CARNAGE, Reza’s through a comic lens. “I’m and our Trainee Assistant latest play looks set to press interested in the banal, Director Pip Smith for their the same buttons. Theatre unguarded moments and the support and contribution to the companies around the world hairline fractures in a character process. are scrambling to present this that let the light through,” said play. What’s the attraction? Reza in a recent New Yorker Enjoy! Proud to be NZ’s Most Official caterers of Certainly the small cast and interview. Awarded Winery and Auckland Theatre Sponsor of Auckland Company the single set makes it very It's been a great pleasure to Theatre Company attractive to managements realise this production of in these straightened times. GOD OF CARNAGE with such Colin McColl MEDIA partners Of course, the subject matter an enquiring and talented team; of schoolyard bullying is Miranda Harcourt, Peter Elliott, something that concerns Hera Dunleavy and Dave Fane all responsible parents. But — all parents and all prepared that’s merely the catalyst for to draw on their own parenting an exploration of attitudes to experience to bring this work politics, work, money, social to life! conscience and hamsters in I’d like to thank Metro Magazine the home. for their support of this season supporting partners What Reza has written is an and the Company. When we AUCKLAND ART GALLERY TOI O TAMAKI / BDO SPICERS / CANON existential comedy as much decided to programme GOD OF akin to Beckett and Sartre as it CARNAGE, it became apparent INFLIGHT PRODUCTIONS / THE LANGHAM / MARKETING IMPACT / PERRY FOUNDATION is to her contemporaries such that it was a play for a partner BRUCE MASON CENTRE / MAIDMENT THEATRE / SKYCITY THEATRE as Stoppard. Her great skill is who understood the value of season of Metro magazine is proud of our record of covering Auckland’s cultural scene and we’re delighted to be the premier sponsor of GOD OF CARNAGE Metro magazine is a stimulating package: delighted to be the hard-nosed current By Yasmina Reza premier sponsor of affairs but also revealing Translated by Christopher Hampton GOD OF CARNAGE, a profiles, irreverent Presented by arrangement with David Pugh and Dafydd Rogers play that sets out to be humour, reliable both entertaining and restaurant reviews and thought-provoking. That’s meaty coverage of books, CAST a mix Metro also aims to film and the arts. deliver every issue, so this We’re proud of our record Dave Fane — Michel Vallon Miranda Harcourt — Veronique Vallon sponsorship is a fitting of covering Auckland’s Peter Elliott — Alain Reille Hera Dunleavy — Annette Reille partnership. Look out for cultural scene. The the full page photo of the chance to see a play GOD OF CARNAGE cast in like GOD OF CARNAGE CREATIVE our annual ’Best Schools’ performed by a brilliant issue, on sale now. local cast is one of the real You should watch out delights of living in New Direction — Colin McColl Set & Costume Design — Rachael Walker too for the next issue of Zealand’s cultural capital. Lighting Design — Nik Janiurek Metro, in a new reader- We wish every success to friendly format, on sale all those involved in the at the end of August. production. PRODUCTION Along with a new size and classic perfect- Production Manager — Mark Gosling Technical Manager — Bonnie Burrill bound look we’re also Senior Stage Manager — Fern Christie Operator — Brodie Quinn sharpening the content to Properties Master — Bec Ehlers Wardrobe Supervisor — Sophie Ham provide even more of the Set Construction — 2 Construct Trainee Assistant Director — Pip Smith Bevan Rapson, Editor, great journalism, brilliant Metro Magazine writing and compelling photography with which GOD OF CARNAGE is the fifth Auckland Theatre Company production for 2009 and opened on July 23rd. GOD OF CARNAGE is approximately our magazine’s always 75 minutes long. Please remember to switch off all mobile phones, pagers and watch alarms. been associated. It’ll be The success of ART wasn’t, long as she makes people please her. those precious years, he be- however, achieved by chance. laugh? Strangely, she does In France, amusement is came her best friend, whose It was the result of a care- care. Reza even resents see- regarded almost as badly as dry wit she inherited. fully orchestrated plan. And ing what she considers trag- commercial success, and be- Whether a moralist, trickster all Reza’s ensuing plays have edies and dramas turned into cause of this Reza has never or great artist, Reza certainly kept to the same pattern with comedies by English speaking played well with French critics. knows how to treat her char- impeccable discipline. audiences. After attending the The French elite doesn’t mind acters ruthlessly, as God of première of ART in London First rule: get the best transla- if the public doesn’t come to Carnage shows. The prem- in October 1996, she turned tor, whatever the cost — see your plays, as long as you ise is simple, but the devil is in to her translator Christopher somebody who understands have been endorsed by the details. Hampton, half-amused, the words, culture la profession. half-furious: “What have and humour. you done?” she asked him. Citizen Reza has yet to be yasmina Second rule: know your In France, audiences hadn’t elevated by her peers to the milieu. Reza, who turned to laughed nearly as much. (imaginary) rank of chevalier du théâtre français. And she reza writing after an unsuccess- ful bout of acting, knows the has always been in two minds theatre world inside-out. She about it: choosing either to writes first of all for actors. “my plays have flaunt the freedom success Her plays are so chewy for always been has brought her in the face playwright actors. She serves them great of her detractors, or loudly parts, saucy lines and crunchy described as resenting her exclusion from monologues on a platter. a pantheon where she insists comedy but i she belongs. Like the French president and sex between the jokes. Third rule: never forget think they’re Nicolas Sarkozy, whose every But what they liked best was theatre directors and manag- Fed up with critics and her step she followed for a year, her wit. Across the Channel ers; they too need help from tragedy. they public whom, at times, she as detailed in her bestseller and the Atlantic, theatre crit- a playwright. Reza always clearly despised, she turned to published in France last ics had seen nothing like it resolves to make their job are funny the figure of Sarkozy who, like September under the rather since Molière. easier — use no more than tragedy, but most of her characters, is self- grand title L’aube le Soir ou four characters and confine obsessed and pathologically Back in 1997, and aged only la Nuit (“Dawn Evening or the action to a single set, a they are ambitious. She followed him 37 — an abnormally young Night”), Reza has become an godsend for anybody running for a year during his presiden- age for a successful French tragedy. maybe internationally recognisable a theatre. tial campaign and produced playwright — Reza spoke of personality. it’s a new a portrait, both cruel and living “a dream” following the The fourth rule has less to genre.” flattering, of an egotist child British and American theatre success of ART. Not only was do with craftsmanship and of a president. The book was critics have saluted her her play performed in London, more to do with an intangible a bestseller even before it hit bravado and skill. At last, they it went on to become a critical quality: talent. For all those For all the universal force of the bookshops, yet she re- sighed, a French author who and commercial success, who would like to see Reza ceived no literary awards for it. isn’t boring, doesn’t ramble and what is often called a shredded to pieces and pil- her wit, Reza remains deeply on, deploys a clear Cartesian “cultural phenomenon”. There loried on the altar of Theatre, grounded in French culture, Again like Sarkozy, she hardly plot and can keep to a 90-min- were soon talks of a transfer her success didn’t happen by where seriousness is more knew her father, at least as a ute performance. Moreover, to Broadway, thanks to Sean miracle alone. Her talent is highly regarded than laughter. child. A Moscow-born Persian here is a French author who Connery who, after his French simple, and she can achieve And the real tragedy for Reza Jew, he was an engineer isn’t too pompous, yet with wife Michèle saw the play in one of the most difficult is that she isn’t at peace with with a passion for piano who just enough pretentiousness French in Paris, snapped up things: making people laugh her success.