By SHARON EBERSON
It was 15 years ago that Patrick Jordan first read the Tony Award-winning play God of Carnage, and put it aside.
When he picked it up again, years later, something had changed. The Yasmina Reza four-hander will close barebones productions’ season, with artistic director Jordan as part of the cast.
“There are hundreds of plays between now and 15 years ago,” Jordan said of when he first read the script. “This play popped into my head, and I went back and reread it, and I was like, ‘Wow, maybe I am 15 years older, but this play hits a very different way right now,’ and it almost comes off as more relevant now than 20 years ago, when it was written.”
Jordan first saw God of Carnage at Pittsburgh Public Theater in 2011, with a cast that included David Whalen, who joins Daina Michelle Griffith and Gayle Pazerski in the barebones cast. Jordan plays Michael, the father of a boy injured in a playground fight.
Michael’s wife Veronica (Griffith) has organized a get-together with the parents of the boy who swung a bat at their son, in the hopes of a civil discussion, despite the violence of the incident.
Whalen reprises the role of Alan, who is constantly on his phone, while Pazerski plays Annette, Alan’s wife, who is increasingly annoyed by the cellphone at his ear.
“I think it’s just basically how people can put on a front to appear to be one thing, and then at the end of the day, one little spark can devolve a situation,” Jordan said. “Yes, there’s marriage issues and there’s couple issues, but there’s also human issues that come up in the play. I think it’s kind of like a perfectly boiled down play. There’s not an ounce of fat on it. It’s funny. It’s scary. It’s touching. It’s got all the feels, but there’s a lot going on.”
God of Carnage was the 2009 Tony winner as best play, and its stars – Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden – were all nominees, with Harden winning as best actress.
It’s easy to understand why actors would jump at the chance to take on these roles that evolve over the course of a taut 75 minutes.
It came to Jordan’s mind as “a tonal shift” to follow the most popular show in barebones’ history, the Jaws-inspired The Shark is Broken.
When he talks about the differences in his reaction to the play 15 years ago and today, a part of that must be that he is now husband and father.
“Oh my gosh, yes. The parents get it. Couples get it. There’s political elements to it — not that it’s a political play, but I mean, you see what’s happening, and there are parallels to what’s happening today in this play. … And did I say it’s funny?”
He did.
“It’s very funny.”
Some of the fun is going on in rehearsal, where pushing through without cracking each other up can be brutal.
Jordan figures that among the quartet of actors, each has been a scene partner onstage at some point, with the exception that he has appeared in a work by Pazerski, not alongside her.
“It’s hard. Terrible,” Jordan said with a laugh. “But these are very intelligent, wonderful actors, and they’re fearless. And so some of the things obviously aren’t going to make it to the audience, but they’re trying stuff in rehearsal, and my God, somebody like Daina pulled something out yesterday that I almost did a spit take. It was just brilliant. It was just so funny and out of left field. David Whalen, for crying out loud, is … totally free, very funny. So we’re all trying to do that. And Melissa Martin, directing, is out there modulating, saying, ‘There’s a little too much yelling, bring that back.’
“Now we’re trying to work on certain special effects …”
This is, after all, a barebones show, in which the promo art is a tooth, in a puddle of blood. That might be misleading in the case of the effects, but no in intention.
The violence of the act in question, and how to deal with it as parents, in a potentially civilized manner, without the school or courts becoming involved, is where the story begins.
“There’s no real hardcore answer, depending on what you believe. Are you an absolutist, or is it just, ‘This kid got hit with a stick, his teeth were broken, kid’s guilty.’ Is that the end of it? Or what caused it?,” Jordan asked.
BAREBONES, BLOOD AND ‘BUG’
Jordan’s company has a reputation for gritty stories in which, often, there will be blood. That reputation was advanced with the 2007 production of Tracy Lett’s Bug.
With a new production of Bug having its first Broadway run in January of next year, OnStage Pittsburgh asked Jordan if seeing that the 1996 play was making a comeback made him nostalgic, and he shared a few stories about the bloody good times of old.
“Oh, so many pangs of nostalgia. I get flashbacks. We have certain special effects [in God of Carnage], not blood, but there was so much blood for Bug,” Jordan recalled.
One blood-spattered incident involved cast members Ken Bolden, Lisa Brennan and a pesticide sprayer full of blood.
“I lifted Ken Bolden over my head with a knife, and people were spraying me with ketchup bottles offstage [using the Hudson brand sprayers], and it was so much just nonsense. There was this one night that we were backstage, they were spraying me with the blood while I was doing the offstage stabbing, and they used the wrong blood. They used the mouth blood on my face. So Lisa Brennan is giving this big two-page Tracy Letts crazy monologue on the bed, and I’ve got my back to the audience, and I’m peeling my eyes open to be able to see, to get to the end with my hands. Oh, man! …,” he exclaimed, trailing off at the memory.
Bug took place on the second floor of the Strand Building at 3609 Forbes Ave. in Oakland, which had previously housed The Upstage.
Barebones arrived just as the club lost its liquor license and was forced to close.
“They had their last night, and we went in the next day. So it still smelled like beer, and there were cockroaches,” Jordan said. “We set up a makeshift shower in the dressing room with Tupperware bins and warm water in a Hudson sprayer, with the plastic sheeting around it. David Cabot was in that, Emmy-nominated Miki Johnson [as a writer on Ozark] was in that show. … It was a wild one.”
Which for barebones, looking back, is saying a lot.
For God of Carnage, opening Friday in Braddock, Jordan used the word “primal” to explain what direction the story will take.
“And it’s also extraordinarily funny,” he said. “I don’t know if I brought that up, but we’re having a blast.”
TICKETS AND DETAILS
Barebones productions’ God of Carnage runs November 7-23, 2025, 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, at barebones black box theater, Bingo O’Malley Stage, 1211 Braddock Avenue, Braddock. Tickets: https://www.barebonesproductions.com/godofcarnage
Categories: Our Posts, Show Previews
Leave a Reply Cancel reply