Childish chaos: 'God of Carnage' paints condemning portrait of bourgeois parenthood and marriage

Two sets of parents meet to discuss the injury one couple’s son inflicted on the other in a local park.

As the evening unfolds, both couples grow increasingly childish as the discussion devolves into chaos.

The French playwright Yasmina Reza’s savage satire “God of Carnage” opens at the Vortex Theatre on Friday, Aug. 9, running through Aug. 25.

Condemning in its portrait of bourgeois parenthood and marriage, the play hails from the same playwright who penned “Art,” which asked if a white canvas could be considered an artwork.

At first, the parents observe diplomatic niceties, but as the meeting progresses, and the alcohol flows, tensions emerge and the gloves come off, leaving the couples with more than just their liberal principles in tatters.

“One of the children has hit the other with a stick and damaged his teeth,” said director Marc Comstock. “Both parents are very different — one is very rich and one is middle class. They approach parenting very differently.”

The play is usually set in Paris or New York. Comstock has set the play in Santa Fe.

“It doesn’t matter where you live, we all have the same conflicts,” he said.

The kids remain offstage while the parents fight like spoiled children.

“It’s very much like watching kids on a playground,” Comstock said. “Alliances change on a dime.”

Problems in both marriages surface, even as mitigating circumstances emerge that make the playground episode seem much less one-sided. The parents behave like playground bullies, throwing tantrums, fists and four-letter words.

As the evening unfurls, the meeting degenerates into loaded topics of sexism, racial prejudice and homophobia.

“It becomes very clear they are just as childish,” Comstock said. “Are we a reflection of our kids? Do our kids (mirror) our worst traits? What boundaries do we set?”

Comstock has double cast the 90-minute performance.

“They’re both telling the story, but they’re getting there in a different way,” he explained. “Yasmina’s work is about tone — how far over the top do you go? The first page of the script says, ‘No realism.’ ”

“God of Carnage” opened on Broadway in 2009 with Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, Marcia Gay Harden and James Gandolfini.