God of Carnage

People are animals

By Yasmina Reza
Translated by Christopher Hampton
Directed by Ryan Bassett

Auditions: Aug 24–26, 2025
Performances: Nov 21–23, 29–30 and Dec 4–7, 2025

When faced with conflict, children can often lash out. That’s what happens on the playground, when 11-year-olds Henry and Benjamin get into a fight. Wanting to set a good example for the children, their parents come together to discuss the incident, and try to settle things in a civilized manner.

They try.

But civility is just a word, and one that is quickly forgotten when you’re standing at the precipice, where the slightest breeze will send all tumbling down. And it’s looking pretty windy.

Contact the director: godofcarnage@kwlt.org

Content warnings: Triggering for emetophobes. Use of insensitive language.

November 28 show postponed to December 4

The COVID-cautious performance on November 28 has been rescheduled to Thursday, December 4 due to illness.

Director’s notes

“Because I feel like it. I feel like showing myself in a horrible light.”

Stand at the very summit of a mountain. Gather up a handful of snow, pack it into a ball, and send it rolling down. It seems innocuous enough at first, but eventually it gains momentum and mass, and before long, what seemed unassuming at the top has destroyed a village at the bottom.

Benjamin & Henry got into a fight on the playground. Wanting to set a good example for the children, their parents have come together to discuss the incident, and try to set a good example by settling things in a civilized manner.

But civility is a very small word.

And people are animals.

We are animals that have created façades and veneers of what we think we ought to be. We ought to be reasonable and rational. We ought not let our emotions and our baser instincts run roughshod over all. And when times are good, we have no issue maintaining this disguise, but, for many of us, more than we’d like to admit, that when backed into even the shallowest of corners, we lash out with bile and gnashing teeth.

In God of Carnage, we see the façades come crumbling down, as incremental challenges to the characters’ children, identities, and perceived self-worth turn civility to vitriol, and supposed well-mannered people into howling creatures.

It’s mean. It’s funny. (Certainly funnier than this note would lead you to believe, yeesh).

And it serves as a stark reminder: there is no civility in the animal kingdom.