Yasmin Reza’s comedy is a riot and is accurately adapted to portray Kathmandu’s burgeoning bourgeoisie
Two sets of trendy middle class Kathmandu parents meet to find out why the son of one smashed the face of the other. Rajan Bajracharya and wife Shanti Upadhyay-Bajracharya host Binod Kumar Upreti and his wife Anita Shrestha-Upreti in their high-rise apartment one evening to declare truce. The seemingly civil gesture extended by one couple soon degenerates into full-scale war. The couples don’t say what they mean, threats are masked in a veneer of smiles, but as the rum starts to take effect, they all start saying what they really, really mean.
In doing so, the pretentiousness, shallow materialism, elastic morals, and egotism of the upper middle class in Kathmandu is laid bare. When the audience at Vajra’s Studio 7 laughs, it is laughing at itself.
Shanti, the epitome of liberal values, insists on penance from her son’s attacker. The very social Rajan proceeds to rebuke his mother for calling him to consult about her illness. The lawyer Binod, with his alpha male swagger, is perennially on the mobile defending his client, a company that makes dodgy medicine. When Anita, Binod’s second wife vomits all over Shanti’s precious coffee table books, all notions of made-up civility evaporate.
The four sophistos are perfect specimens of Kathmandu’s ivory tower society, mispronouncing names of imported kitsch, only to be reminded of the correct diction by a condescending neighbour who offers to polish Shanti’s English.
Yasmin Reza’s play was a hit on Broadway and was turned into a film in 2011 by Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski. The Nepali adaptation is in English, with Binod and Anil sometimes breaking hilariously into Newari and Nepali. There are snide asides to Colonel Lama’s arrest for wartime torture in the UK and every time the sliding window of the hermetically sealed apartment is opened, it wafts in the roar of traffic below and the overpowering odour of a river turned into a sewer.
This is Studio 7’s first performance in which all the Nepali actors are talented professional film artistes. They are on stage for one-and-half hours without any breaks. Sabine Lehmann and Ludmilla Hungerhuber make cameo comic relief appearances. The God of Carnage is a must-see in this sweltering Kathmandu summer and is as real as the stench of the Bishnumati below.
Sunir Pandey
The God of Carnage
Cast: Karma, Samuna KC, Subaash Thapa, Jharna Bajracharya
Directed by Sabine Lehmann
Set design by Ludmille Hungerhuber
Music by Zogoro
Rs 800, 3-19 May, Fridays to Sundays, 7.15pm, (01)4271545, [email protected]