God of Carnage

How the thin line between good manners and chaos collapses in the course of a single evening.

Yasmina Reza’s celebrated play - a Tony Award winner, filmed by Roman Polanski - returns to the stage in a new reading.

It is a rare chance to see a merciless, precise and outrageously funny production about human nature, one that rings truer today than ever. Spend the evening at the theatre and see just how deep this ironic, fast-moving story runs.

It all begins with a trivial incident: two boys get into a fight in the yard, and one of them knocks out a couple of the other’s teeth.

Their parents - two restrained, successful, well-mannered couples - gather in a living room to discuss what happened like adults. The civilised conversation quickly reaches a dead end. Coffee gives way to hard liquor, impeccable manners to open hostility, and the grown-ups turn into the very brawlers whose interests they came to defend. Over an hour and a half the alliances within the couples fall apart and re-form, and every last layer of social polish peels away.

Staged by directors Elena Khazanova and Georges Guerreiro, the production combines theatrical momentum with an expressive, cinematic language. At the heart of this sharp tragicomedy is a star ensemble: Alexander Kuznetsov, Maria Mashkova, Artur Smolyaninov and Maria Shalaeva. Together they play out a virtuoso psychological duel about how easily the facade of a comfortable life falls apart once real instincts take the stage.

Age rating: 16+.