“Dahling, you’re divine. I’ve had an affair with your husband. You’ll be next.”

This is Tallulah Bankhead speaking to Joan Crawford in the 1930s when Joan was wed to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. 

Of course, these people were before your time, as who would act that way now?

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OK! What does “God of Carnage” mean and what are you to expect from a night in the theater that includes the TV superstar James Gandolfini; the Oscar-and-Tony winner Marcia Gay Harden; our old friend from the Purple Rose Theater – the journeyman actor Jeff Daniels; and the NY Film Critics winner and character woman of all work, Hope Davis? (To give all their credits would be simply too much.)    

I’ll tell you what the title means; it indicates the historical way the all-powerful creator has treated miserable little human beings throughout history. And with this in mind, these four adept actors give us — human nature at its best, its worst and its most hysterical. Under the direction of Matthew Warchus, they interact together like a Mozart quartet breaking apart at the seams. Each actor is superb — their interaction like perfect clockwork — and each is someone you know and love; maybe you yourself.

Don’t let anyone tell you what “God of Carnage” is about. Don’t let anyone spoil it by explaining plot to you. Just go, fasten your seat belt and sit there for the bumpy night as these fabulous talents enact Yasmina Reza’s play as translated by Christopher Hampton.

(Playwright Reza previously wrote “Art” but that has nothing to do with this!)

This comedy of grown people holding back and letting go is one of the funniest things I’ve encountered in 60 years of Broadway!

So far, “God of Carnage” should win the Tony Award provided the voters aren’t too far gone in searching for “serious” stuff.

Gandolfini opens as a mild-mannered, somewhat henpecked, decent husband and ends with a roar, which he manages to make entirely different from the familiar tirades and assaults of Tony Soprano. What a great actor! Jeff Daniels, too – usually sympathetic and middle-of-the-road — has here perfected his cynical, insensitive lawyer into a realistic white-collar villain seldom realized. Miss Harden is the idealist out to save Darfur and the world; you know her very well – she is today’s Everywoman. And she is, as usual, magnificent. And Hope Davis must definitely win something for unprecedented projectile vomiting onstage and other feats of mesmerism in changing a character’s behavior about 40 times before your eyes. She is my new heroine!

The set by Mark Thompson is streamlined and effective and his white tulips are definitely the stars of the night! Don’t miss “God of Carnage” at the Bernie Jacobs Theater in New York City!

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The British press is quibbling over President Obama’s gift to Prime Minister Gordon Brown of a set of 25 classic American movies, including “Psycho.” Now they say the movies only work on the North American type DVD player and Gordon can’t even view them in Blighty. The prime minister’s office rebuts saying: “Any gift President Obama gave PM Brown would have been well thought through.”

But, look, this is worldwide open season on brand-new President Obama and he has to just go on doing his “thing” and not pay too much attention to the fact that the world expected miracles from him in the first days. He seems to be expected to, overnight, undo the policies and actions that have been afflicting America for the past three administrations.

Brown and Obama © Getty Images

I’d say it’s the antediluvian Congress that is keeping Americans arguing, weeping, sighing and unable to make progress even though we are faced with an economic crisis that makes World War II look easy.