March 23 (Bloomberg) -- Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage,” with Jeff Daniels, Hope Davis, James Gandolfini and Marcia Gay Harden, proves superior entertainment at Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. What a pleasant surprise to share a walloping good time with the audience at this comedy, whose ferocious title paradoxically reinforces the subtly furibund fun.

As aptly translated from the French by the British playwright Christopher Hampton (“Dangerous Liaisons”) for the West End, and requiring only minor adjustments by him and the cast for Broadway, the story adapts seamlessly to New York life. A rare case this, where absence of intermission is not there to keep people from leaving, but to obviate the slightest interval in the play’s sweeping comic momentum.

Two couples, the Raleighs and the Novaks, meet chez Novak to discuss the fracas involving 11-year-olds Henry Novak and Benjamin Raleigh. It seems that in the schoolyard Henry called Benjamin a snitch, whereupon Benjamin, with a swing of a stick, eliminated two of Henry’s incisors.

It all begins civilly enough. The Novaks are remarkably forgiving, hospitably entertaining the Raleighs with dessert and drinks, not to mention two vases bursting with tulips. Michael Novak sells domestic hardware, wife Veronica writes books about Africa and works part-time in an art-history bookshop. Both are cordially outgoing.

Cynical Lawyer

So, too, is Annette Raleigh, a wealth counselor, who seems deeply grateful for the Novaks’ sympathy until things start deteriorating. Part of the trouble is big-time lawyer Alan Raleigh, a cynic barely interested in the business at hand. Every few minutes, he gets or makes calls on his mobile phone concerning an impending lawsuit against a drug company he represents.

This makes for loud, unwelcome interruptions, later vaguely replicated by phone calls from Michael’s importunate mother. Further complications stem from both wives’ censure of Michael for surreptitiously throwing out Henry’s pet hamster, which kept the suffering Henry awake at night and had always been hated by his father.

Things go from bad to worse when Annette, panicking, vomits all over Veronica’s precious art books and Alan’s overcoat. Soon almost no holds are barred, what with a drowned cell phone and ravaged tulips and Michael’s proffered Jamaican rum and Havana cigars, intended as pacifiers, only exacerbating the mayhem.

War Zone

In best farce tradition, this is an actors’ and director’s holiday. With the text an effective blueprint, director Matthew Warchus and his dazzling cast conjure up a comic war zone where, unexpectedly, enemies morph into allies, married couples into adversaries and attacks, some physical, leave everyone hurt and enraged.

Parental problems are soon engulfed by various bitter rivalries, many of them based on differences of social standing. Pacific behavior, in a world ruled by the god of carnage, clearly doesn’t stand a chance.

Daniels is a wonderfully sardonic and patronizing Alan until wounded in his clothing, whereupon his composure goes hilariously out the window. Davis’s Annette gets majestically drunk and throws up spectacularly. Harden’s Veronica goes to pieces in exhilarating fashion, each piece funnier than the one before it. Gandolfini valiantly tries to keep order until being called a hamster killer, then patronized for his profession and badgered for his maternal phone calls wreak their humorous havoc.

This perfect acting ensemble, brilliantly directed, provides marvels of demeanor and delivery, its precision timing and onstage deployment yielding sidesplitting returns. Mark Thompson’s set and costume design and Hugh Vanstone’s unforgiving lighting contribute handsomely. The god of comedy is served every bit as well as his colleague of carnage.

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(John Simon is the New York drama critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: John Simon in New York at jis1925@aol.com.

Last Updated: March 22, 2009 22:30 EDT