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Since Antony and Cleopatra -- no, since Adam and Eve -- battling couples have made for lively drama. So why not double the fun, as with Edward Albee's George, Martha and their young victims? Having two battling couples doesn't just double the fun and games, it squares it.

We'll see that later this spring at the Public Theater, when two couples comically revert to primitive battle in "The God of Carnage." But there's no need to wait: right now there's more intense four-person comic ferocity and brawling farce in Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's "Hunter Gatherers" at Bricolage.

The occasion is an anniversary of sorts, celebrating the time 18 years ago when two pairs of high school sweethearts bonded at the prom. They've been so-called best friends ever since, although that friendship has dwindled down to this depressive yearly ritual -- the arena for show-off cooking by the hyper-everything Richard. 'Hunter Gatherers'

His wife, Pam, is ditzy and recessive, somewhat aghast but ultimately complaisant when Richard insists they get really close to their food by slaughtering the lamb themselves (thankfully, out of sight in a cardboard box). Enter their guests, Tom and Wendy, their mirror images, which is to say she's the ferocious one, he the milquetoast.

Let the games begin. They include phony gentility, wishful thinking and simmering resentment, all of it very funny as social revelation and embarrassment can be. There's also plenty of sex drive, not always in predictable ways, and the battles soon turn bloody without ever losing their comic edge. I don't think I ever stopped laughing, although I would have liked to slap around a few of the characters myself.

I'd guess playwright Nachtrieb had as much fun as the audience. That bed in the loft sits there in Act 1 like the proverbial gun over the mantel, just waiting to be used -- and it is -- although the most deadly weapon (there's poetic justice here) turns out to have been in full view well before it's put to use. The level of mayhem rises to that of Martin McDonagh, which is to say pretty high.

Providing a usefully cramped arena is the deft set by Jesse Connor, with appropriate costumes (the ubiquitous Richard Parsakian) and lights (the even more ubiquitous Andy Ostrowski). Randy Kovitz's fine fight choreography gets a workout and Jeffrey Carpenter directs it all with economic clarity.

Tressa Glover as the perpetually flustered Pam is a wonder of timing. Her dismayed silences and expressive eyes making her the perfect foil. In delicious comic contrast, Amy Landis' Wendy is stiletto sharp, building from smoldering resentment to operatic aggression. Ms. Landis takes to the role like a shark to raw meat.

The nerdy, repressed Tom, a melancholic doctor and perpetual loser, is played by Michael Fuller with his usual comic invention, this time expanding very gradually into an engine of baffled revenge.

Holding center stage is Jonathan Visser (relatively new in town) as the egomaniacal Richard, a sexual Johnny Appleseed, loony narcissist and perhaps psychotic, to boot. Do I think he plays it over the top? Sort of. But how can you go over the top in a sadistic farce like this?

So what does it all mean? That we have lustful, voracious possibilities lurking just below the surface? Or the reverse, that we have a surprising potential for tenderness? Yeah, all that.

That dichotomy is right there in the title, if you imagine hunter and gatherer as alternatives. The phrase usually refers to a combination of hunting and gathering in the early stage of homo sapiens, but there is an implication of specialization that Mr. Nachtrieb dramatizes, and in its interactive lobby, Bricolage exploits that dichotomy with a quiz allowing audience members to discover whether they're primarily aggressors or nurturers.

But that gives the play more credit for deep thought than it warrants. Let's just call it a crackling good comedy/farce, red in tooth and claw.