Audiences familiar with UpstART Theater’s work — often heartwarming, life-affirming plays — should prepare themselves for something entirely different when the Ouray County professional theater company puts on its latest project starting June 3.

“God of Carnage,” written by Yasmina Reza and published in 2008, centers on two couples from Brooklyn who meet following a fight between their 11-year-old sons. What should be a calm, rational debate between grown-ups devolves as the night wears...