BWW Interviews: Kim Tobin, John Gremillion, and Kay Allmand Talk Stark Naked Theatre's GOD OF CARNAGE

Sitting down with any member of the Houston theatre community is one of the true perks of writing for BroadwayWorld. Recently, I got to sit down with three of the four cast members in Stark Naked Theatre's upcoming production of Yasmina Reza's GOD OF CARNAGE. Kim Tobin (playing Veronica), John Gremillion (playing Alan), and Kay Allmand (playing Annette) all talked to me about the show and why Houston audiences will love it.

Me: The announcement of GOD OF CARNAGE was a surprise. What prompted the change in the season line up?

Kim Tobin: Well, we were actually thinking about what the whole season was about. We were working on the casting for BEYOND THEARAPY and were having some glitches with people being cast in other shows and coming up with how we were going to do it. Then, we started looking at the way the season was lined up and the way it seemed to be about couples and marriage. GOD OF CARNAGE had been on our list previously, anyway. Then, the way that BODY AWARENESS was about a married couple and conflict there, and then MACBETH is the ultimate couple strife [play]. So, because GOD OF CARANGE had almost made it anyway, and we were coming into some issues in casting the men in BEYOND THERAPY because of everybody being cast and casting being kind of late, it just felt like, "Wow, well this is couple conflict and we know some people available that fit these roles." So, the switch just seemed logical, and it just fit the season better. That's why we did it.

Me: GOD OF CARNAGE is hilarious, but also pretty heavy. How are you preparing for your roles?

Kim Tobin: (Looking at John Gremillion) Go ahead!

John Gremillion: I don't know yet. I'll have to think about that.

Kim Tobin: (Looking at Kay Allmand) Do you have any thoughts on that?

Kay Allmand: I think what I have been doing, especially in practicing on my own, especially, is trying to find the extremes of Annette, in order to be able to find a happy medium. I think she's kind of a high-strung people pleaser. She has her own bitch streak too. So, I go through it being like totally hysterical and bitchy. Then I go through it dripping with sweetness to try and find what sticks and what doesn't.

John Gremillion: For me, the role of Alan is a bit of a challenge because he stands for a lot things that I do not stand for. In fact, I find myself personally connecting more with some of what the other characters' philosophies are. So, I have to try and remove myself from that and find whatever it is in myself [that] is more standoffish, more shallow, (Laughs) if you will. He was raised on things that are the complete opposite of what I was raised on. He says, "I was raised with a kind of John Wayne-ish idea of virility," which doesn't mesh with what I was bought up with. (He and Kim Tobin Laugh) He's just a very different person than who I am. So, it's fun to go there, and it's challenging. But it can't be pretend. You have to find something in yourself. Whenever you play a character who you think is a jerk, you can't play jerk. And you can't play mean or evil. You have to believe whole-heartedly in what you're saying. You have to find something in yourself that locks in with what this person is saying, even if you personally disagree with it. You have to think that you're doing right! Even if you look at a character from the outside and you think, "This guy's not very nice," you know.

Kim Tobin: I think I really relate to Veronica a lot. I think she's very high-minded, and she's very meticulous about how she wants to express herself. I think I do that, and I think I try to do that. Unfortunately, when people try to do that, they end up very frustrated and very (Pauses) repressed. Because the harder you try to select exactly how you want to say everything in order to make sure that everyone hears you exactly the way you want to be heard, you're keeping back what you really mean. And so you end up pent up, and you think you're actually getting out more of what you want...

John Gremillion: (Feeding Into Kim Tobin's Idea) Because you try too hard.

Kim Tobin:...because you try too hard to get it exactly the way you want, instead of just allowing it to be (Pauses) said. And that's a lot of what this whole play is. The catharsis for an audience in this play is that they watch: ok, these people are going to come together, and make a real effort to just say the right thing, and say the right things to do the right, appropriate set of steps to get this solution to this problem about their children on the table, and that never works. And if we've all thought about everything we should do the right way, you know, and put it on the table, that's a nice dream we all have in this world, but those things never happen. What happens is you've repressed everything you truly want to say.

John Gremillion: Another element of that is that sometimes people are in heated agreement, if you will, because sometimes people do feel the same way, but they don't express it well enough. Or they argue semantics, or they miss connections they could make because they just don't know how to communicate with each other. They don't know how to speak each other's language.

Kim Tobin: True.

John Gremillion: You know what I mean?

Kim Tobin: Yeah, but what's great for the audience is that they get to watch people just take the gloves off and go, "Screw it. I'm just going to say anything I want." And just go crazy.

In the front of the script it says, "No realism. Nothing superfluous." So, she [Yazmina Reza] makes a point to tell the actors, the directors, the artists building the set and doing everything involved that there is an element in this play of non-realism. That we realize we're stepping over a line here that people don't do.

Kay Allmand: Mm-hmm.

Kim Tobin: That you are supposed to suspend your disbelief and go, "We start out in a very realistic place of how people behave, and we're going to cross a line," and know that the audience gets to step out of their reality and go, "If I stayed in a room too long, and if I allowed myself to talk in a way or to go further than I normally go, this might happen, and, boy, wouldn't it be fun!" (John Gremillion Laughs)

Kay Allmand: When my mom read the play, she was like, "I don't know. I mean, that would never happen." I was like, "Mom! That's the point."

Kim Tobin: (Almost in Unison with Kay Allmand) That's the point!

Kay Allmand: You want to see, because it's almost like you getting to see inside of people's minds-we're getting to look at how they'd really love to behave. They could just tell everybody off.

Kim Tobin: Right, they could just throw things around. Scream and yell. Do whatever they want. She [Yazmina Reza] puts crazy devices in to allow you to stay in. You know, we won't give things away because we don't want people to know, but she does things to allow you to suspend your disbelief to stay in the room.

Me: Yeah.

John Gremillion: In today's world of, you know, reality TV being so popular...

Kim Tobin: Mm-hmm.

John Gremillion:...and things like that, where people go to even further extremes on a regular basis...

Kim Tobin: That's right.

John Gremillion:...to deal with the most simple disagreements, it's interesting to see how audiences react to something like this because this play doesn't even get close to those kinds of fits.

Kim Tobin: That's right. And we've totally taken a tangent off your question.

Me: No, that's fine. (Kim Tobin Laughs) That's fine. I'm thinking about everything you're saying, and, yeah, whenever the couple goes to leave the first time, that's where you would actually leave.

Kim Tobin: Exactly!

Me: You wouldn't turn back in the door.

Kim Tobin: You would not!

Kay Allmand: And then you'd have each of your conversations, them at their living room and us in the car about what bitches and assholes each other are...

Kim Tobin: That's right.

Kay Allmand:...and that'd be the end of it.

John Gremillion: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim Tobin: Yeah, and we would have never said it in the room.

John Gremillion: That's true.

Me: You'd never get to see [the climatic tantrums]. (Kay Allmand and I laugh)

Kim Tobin: Yeah, you'd never get to half the places we do, but she [Yazmina Reza] puts devices in that allow us to stay there.

Me: I have found that the venue a show is played in really affects how audiences respond to it. What challenges does the intimacy of Studio 101 present in regards to your preparation for GOD OF CARNAGE, especially in consideration with those more over the top moments?

Kay Allmand: Well, the first that comes to my mind is the, should I say that now?

Kim Tobin: We probably shouldn't give that away. I'd like that to be a surprise. It's fun for that to be a shock.

Kay Allmand: I think that it will be just like what you're saying. I think it will work really well being as intimate as it is. Even though it is over the top when we go to some crazy places, I feel like the closer we are the more it's like (Contorts In Disgust), "Eww... Ughh.. Eww!" You know?

Kim Tobin: Yeah.

Kay Allmand: Drawing you in and then making you cringe and be like, "Oh, I gotta get outta here, but I really want to wait and see." Like Jerry Springer.

John Gremillion: Yeah.

Kim Tobin: Yes, it almost feels like a Jerry Springer episode, I think.

John Gremillion: And it probably didn't feel that way on Broadway or in bigger theatres...

Kim Tobin: Yeah.

John Gremillion:...where they produced it, because you're at a safer distance from that.

Kay Allmand: Right.

John Gremillion: But that's true, when you're up closer to it, you're going to feel like you could get hit with a chair, (Laughs) like you're [in] a Jerry Springer audience or something like that. But you know at the same time, you're safe enough. So, it's going to be a little more intense for some audiences on the front couple of rows and all that.

Kay Allmand: I think it will create a really neat experience for everybody.

John Gremillion: Mm-hmm. Intensity.

Kim Tobin: You know, when I saw it on Broadway, it was fantastic, you felt really involved, and it was fun. I think the difference, for me, in what happens in Studio 101 is...(Pauses)...you know, the intimacy allows people to have all levels of emotion on a bigger scale. You feel more participatory in that small environment, less observational. So when you're in a big theatre, you like you're an observer. Whereas, in a tiny theatre, you almost feel like you're a participant.

Kay Allmand: Mm-hmm.

Kim Tobin: So, you almost feel like you want to start yelling at people, or you want to get involved. Whereas in the big theatre, you're just like, you know, "look at that."

Kay Allmand: Mm-hmm.

Kim Tobin: Like you're outside. So, I like that. It also gives you the freedom to not have quite the obligation of the projection. A little bit of [the] worries about sound are not quite there. You know, if the air kicks on, we have to worry a tiny bit about projection over air, but you don't have the same literal issues with [the] technical in a small environment that you have in a large environment, which is a little bit of freedom. Which, of course, there's a lot of volume in this, so you don't have worry anyway because people are fighting a lot or freaking out a lot once you get past the first part.

Kay Allmand: I think that the intimacy is also neat because in this space you can see the whole audience. You can see people's faces, so it's really nice to have more complex involvement that just audience and actors.

Kim Tobin: It does. It feeds you more as an actor when the audience is that close. It feels much more like they're an actual part of the play.

Me: You won't have to wait for applause to know if they're liking it, you'll be able to read it.

Kim Tobin: Yes. Yes.

John Gremillion: Yeah.

Kim Tobin: Oh, and when you read their horror or their discomfort, it's wonderful. You know, because it's appropriate. They should be uncomfortable, confused, or shocked and then tickled. Like, "Oh my God! I've always wanted to say that," or "That's horrible." And those things are all part of this show, you know. And they're taking sides. They should take sides, you know. Then switch sides, and be confused that they switch sides. That's a wonderful part of this play.

John Gremillion: The characters are switching sides every now and then too.

Kim Tobin: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Me: GOD OF CARNAGE was adapted to a film with an all star cast, featuring Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, and John C. Reilley. Does that put any pressure on your performances?

Kay Allmand: I don't think so because I think that the way that they did it for film was very appropriate. I feel like the language got a little milder in the movie and was made more accessible for film. The acting was a lot more realistic, whereas this is a play, and it's very different in that way.

Kim Tobin: Mm-hmm.

Kay Allmand: We're not trying to act like this is something they're going to film.

Kim Tobin: Right.

John Gremillion: I didn't see the whole film, but the parts of the film I saw, there was a big difference between how claustrophobic it felt. There's a certain claustrophobia that film creates, but there is a different kind of discomfort when you see the play because you can never leave the room. It's in real time. The lights never go out and come back up again; there is no passage of time. And it's the same way in the film, but you can never leave this one space. When they made the film, they traveled around to the bathroom, the kitchen, the different areas, and the elevator in the hallway in the apartment. For me, it wasn't quite as discomforting.

Kim Tobin: I agree.

Kay Allmand: And the stakes didn't feel as high.

Kim Tobin: That's right.

John Gremillion: That's right.

Kim Tobin: It doesn't. Film, just film, in the medium in general, depends so much more on the emotional content they try to pull out of actors' faces. Stage is so much about the action happening in the space between the movement and the actual interaction between people.

Kay Allmand: Mm-hmm.

Kim Tobin: And it's a different kind of action.

John Gremillion: On stage, you always see what everybody is doing every moment...

Kim Tobin: (Almost in unison with John Gremillion) Doing at the same time.

John Gremillion:...and you can decide where to look and where not to look,...

Kim Tobin: Mm-hmm.

John Gremillion:...and film tells you where to look at every moment.

Kim Tobin: At every second.

John Gremillion: And you don't always see everything, so there's a difference in that.

Kim Tobin: It's different with how they're trying to communicate story.

Kay Allmand: Yeah. You don't get the full body, just the...

Kim Tobin: (Interjecting) Yeah. I think this play and how the story is written, the communication of it, works better on the stage...

Kay Allmand: Yeah, absolutely.

Kim Tobin:...to me, than on the film. And I'd encourage people who saw the film to really come out and see it because it's such a different experience, that they'd really enjoy that.

John Gremillion: That's true. If you're only connection with it is the film, it's a whole different...

Kim Tobin: It's a whole different experience.

John Gremillion:...viewpoint, yeah.

Me: I'm excited. (Laughs)

Kim Tobin: Yeah.

Me: I like the movie.

Kim Tobin: Yeah! Then you'll really love it.

Kay Allmand: Yeah, I did too, but it's very different!

Kim Tobin: But it's a very different experience. Yeah, you'll be really shocked. I think that those people that saw the film will be really shocked how different the experience is to see it on stage.

Kay Allmand: Mm-hmm.

Me: As individual artists, what do you hope audiences will take away from this performance?

Kay Allmand: I think that (Pauses) it's a little bit of relief and also a knowing that the relief comes from watching people act out their baser impulses. It kind of brings us together in a way that everybody's human and this kind of crap goes on in everybody's mind, so there's a relief in that. There's a relief in watching that play out and getting to that kind of catharsis...

Kim Tobin: Yeah.

Kay Allmand:...of watching all that. But also, after that, it's like, "Ok, but that didn't work." You know, everything's actually worse off. (Kim Tobin Laughs) So, there's a relief but also the lesson of "as good as that kind of felt, that ain't the way to go."

John Gremillion: Yeah.

Kay Allmand: That's not going to get you anywhere. (Laughs)

John Gremillion: Absolutely. Absolutely. Life is all about balance, and there's always a balance between just being controlled by your baser instincts and keeping some perspective and decorum in your life about how you express yourself and how you solve problems.

Kim Tobin: Mm-hmm.

Kay Allmand: So, hopefully this will save everybody a lot of problems.

John Gremillion: That's right. (Laughs)

Kim Tobin: Yeah! (She and Kay Allmand Laugh with John Gremillion.) Go watch somebody else do it and be very relieved that you got to see...

John Gremillion: Learn exactly how not to do something.

Kim Tobin:...I didn't have to do that. (They All Laugh) I think it is too. You can really go in and remember you're going to a play, you know, this is something I'm going to go watch some actors go out, tell a story, and perform something for me that I'm supposed to experience, like everything Kay said, and go and treat it like an experience that you get to have that gets to show you an example of something, but you didn't have to go through it yourself, and you get to take away something.

Kay Allmand: You don't have to pay those consequences.

Kim Tobin: That's right. You don't have to pay the consequences. Then, it's fun! But you kind of got to experience it without actually having to pay the consequences. It's like, (Draws a Deep Breath) "God, I have wanted to do that so many times, and I kind of just got to do it."

John Gremillion: It's kind of like the reason some people go see horror movies...

Kim Tobin: That's why I go to horror movies, exactly!

John Gremillion:...and go to see those action films, and stuff like that. They can get completely freaked out about it...

Kim Tobin: (Almost in Unison with John Gremillion) I get scared out of my mind! And nobody tried to stab me. (Laughs)

John Gremillion:...but you know you're completely safe. You can go to that place emotionally on some level...

Kim Tobin: Yes.

John Gremillion:...and experience the thrill of it like a roller coaster ride.

Kim Tobin: It's the same exact thing to me as a horror movie.

John Gremillion: Mm-hmm.

Kim Tobin: I go in the horror movie, and I love it. I love horror movies. I go in there, I scream, and my heart races. I get scared out of my mind, and then I laugh. I'm like, "I just got that sensation of being petrified, which kind of gives me this euphoria, and nobody actually tried to stab me when I left." It's the same kind of thing I think this play is. Yeah. (Pauses) If you look at it that way. (Pauses) Right. (Pauses)

Me: What are your favorite aspects of GOD OF CARNAGE?

John Gremillion: I like the fact that it happens in real time. Once again, there is no break in time. From the minute the lights go up until the minute they go down, it's one continuous scene as opposed to her other play that she's best known for, 'ART,' which has several scenes that take place until like the last hour.

That's a real challenge for actors, and it's really fun because you not only have to work on individual arcs as characters through a one hour and a half chunk of time, (Pauses) but the director also gets to work with everybody as to how the arc for all four are going to go, if that makes sense. It's just there's a really unique challenge to not being able to, as an audience member or as an actor preparing for a role, imagining what happened from this moment to that moment in between. It's a little more challenging and more fun that way, I think. (Pauses) Does that make sense?

Kim Tobin: Well, you don't get a break. You don't break and go, "Ok, now I did this scene, now I'm going to another time." It's...

Kay Allmand: Momentums not interrupted.

Kim Tobin: Yeah.

John Gremillion: Yeah.

Kim Tobin: I actually really like that the piece is so in the moment that it doesn't necessarily follow a straight arc even. It can turn on a dime anywhere in the piece, so I don't feel, as an actor, that I have to do any kind of real worrisome prep for some giant thing I have to arrive at. I feel this piece is going to take me. I have to come in the room and I have to show up for this thing I have to do. If I just go, and I just get on this roller coaster, I'm going. And it could go up a hill, down a curve, it could flip upside down, you know, go around a corner. I don't know. I'm just on it. It doesn't matter where it goes, and, as an actor, it's a very fast ride, and it just goes all kinds of directions. It doesn't necessarily follow a clear path, and the piece is beautiful like that. It's beautiful for an audience in that respect, that it's just a crazy ride. You think you're going to go one way, and then it veers the other way. And as an actor, that's exciting.

John Gremillion: Mm-hmm.

Kim Tobin: It's very fulfilling. And emotionally...(Pauses)...it's just really exciting and it's wonderful because you don't have to worry about your emotional line. This piece is going to surprise you. As an actor, it's like one minute I think I know what I'm going with with somebody and then they throw something at me, and I'm just-I don't even know what to expect, and I like the idea that I'm not realy sure what to expect all the time.

Kay Allmand: Yeah. I like the wildness of it.

Kim Tobin: Mm-hmm.

Me: It's leaves it kind of open for every night to really be a different night depending on inflection and delivery.

John Gremillion: True.

Kim Tobin: Love that.

Me: In your opinion, what is the number one reason Houston audiences should see this production of GOD OF CARNAGE?

John Gremillion: Me. (Kim Tobin Laughs) That's what everybody wants to say.

Kay Allmand: I think I'd answer the same things as earlier about the relief and yet the knowledge, the wisdom not to go there. I think that's great. I don't know why. That's not really about this particular production.

Kim Tobin: I, you know...

John Gremillion: The intimacy of the space...

Kim Tobin: Yeah!

John Gremillion:...like you said earlier.

Kim Tobin: Yeah because this production is done in this space,...

Kay Allmand: Yeah, it's perfect.

Kim Tobin:...you're going to have an experience with it that you won't have in other theatres that you could have seen it in. I also think, now that we've almost gone through the whole play, that, and I'm saying this more as a producer now, even though I'm in it, I have a little bit of an ability as a teacher, a director, and as a third eye, to say, "this is a really strong cast." We're having a real lot of fun, and there's already a really strong connection between the four of us. So, it's going to be fun. It's going to be a really strong production. And the space.

Kay Allmand: Yeah, the space. For sure, the space.

Kim Tobin: They're going to have a good time. It's going to be fun! It's fun! (Laughs) And it is funny.

Me: It's really funny.

Kim Tobin: I've had a hard time getting through it without busting out laughing. (Kay Allmand Laughs) Last night, I bust out laughing like four times. Yeah, I was like, "Ok. Sorry. Break! Time out."

Kay Allmand: And when you see that crazy look in people's eyes when they get that wild like (Acts Out) "I'm going to get you! OH MY GOD!"

Kim Tobin: Oh, I know. Right? (Laughs)

Kay Allmand: We don't see that very much in our normal polite lives. (Laughs)

John Gremillion: No.

Kim Tobin: When people are out of their mind.

Kay Allmand: Yeah.

Kim Tobin: It's fun. You'll have a good time.

Kay Allmand: And it's funny too because we don't go there so much that when we do, it's almost like there's something childlike about it, that's like...(Pauses)

Kim Tobin: (Completing the Thought) Like having a temper tantrum!

Kay Allmand: Yeah! Exactly! But it's almost kind of funny. Like, ok, that's kind of scary, but at the same time it's kind of hilarious when you're acting like that.

Kim Tobin: But it's great because you don't know how to handle somebody like that. And that's also why people stay in the room. They're like, "Do I run from here? Or do I just wait? Are they going to attack me if I try to leave?" You don't know how to handle someone when they reach that kind of insanity.

Kay Allmand: And I hope that shows up because the whole point of the play is that they're just big children.

Kim Tobin: That's exactly right. They turn into big children themselves.

Kay Allmand: Yeah. They're just in big bodies, but they're still five years old.

Kim Tobin: And that's what I encourage people to remember too. I read one review in New York of someone who hated it because they were saying people don't act like that, but that's not the point. The point is, if people devolved to that level-if we let ourselves, and that's part of why my argument [as Veronica] is, in a civilized society, we don't behave like this. She has that argument in there because she's arguing for the fact that people don't do this. She's kind of telling you while we're doing it...

Kay Allmand: (Almost in Unison with Kim Tobin) And she's one of the worst ones in the play! (Laughs)

Kim Tobin:...and I'm the worst one in the whole play! It's kind of like Yazmina Reza is so smart she's saying, "We don't do this, but watch me do it."

Kay Allmand: Yeah.

John Gremillion: And my character makes the specific argument that it's perfectly fine to...

Kim Tobin: Do it once in a while.

John Gremillion:...completely throw off the conventions of behaving yourself in our society and being polite, etc. But he's probably more restrained for most of the play than, you know, until a certain moment.

Kay Allmand: But restrained because, when walk in, you are the one with the least front. You're openly an asshole.

Kim Tobin: But also, he's the one who pays the least attention to anything going on.

John Gremillion: Because I don't want to be there. I care less than anyone else about what we're really there for.

Kay Allmand: He's not ashamed of the fact that he's an asshole.

Kim Tobin: But it's also not easy to lose your cool when you don't pay attention to anything. How are you going to lose your cool in a conversation that you don't even get involved in? Right? I mean, I'm not going to lose my cool if I don't get involved in the conversation ever.

John Gremillion: The other thing that's fun about...

Kim Tobin: It's fun!

John Gremillion:...this kind of play, and when you ask about seeing this production specifically, I think any production that you see of this play is going to be vastly different from each other because there is so much potential to take the arguments and the outbursts in different directions. Our director, Justin Doran, is really being very open with us and giving us a lot of free reign to create. You'll never see the same production twice. I mean, you can say that about any play, of course, but this-the four different people with their different interactions and levels. I don't know what I'm saying. I'm not putting this correctly.

Kay Allmand: You are. There's a lot of freedom for a lot of different choices.

John Gremillion: Yeah. It leaves it very open.

Kim Tobin: Well, I think that's a whole big part of what our mission is about-a particular aesthetic of acting. Usually, we give a little lecture before our rehearsals start that's about how our thing is all about being really freed emotionally, be in the moment, very true and real. That's part of why we love our space. Emotionally, we want to be able to be free in the moment to have real reactions that our audience sees. We don't want to have set, fake reactions that sometimes you see in theatre. Sometimes you see people choose to indicate particular emotions and repeat the indications, and we want you to be free to have that flexibility every night to change your emotional reactions. If you're supposed to cry, sometimes you have to cry, it says that, but you can be sobbing or you can just be a little moist. You can just be a little bit crying, and give yourself the flexibility to know that I don't have to be bawling every night. I can be a little bit. Audiences will accept you wherever you are, as long as it's true. We just care that it's true and that it's real. And that's what the audience will love. That's what they want. They want the truth, so that's what we're shooting for, but we will be behaving like big, bad children when we need to. (Laughs)

Stark Naked Theatre presents Yasmina Reza's GOD OF CARNAGE at Studio 101 at 1824 Spring Street, Houston, TX from February 21, 2013 to March 9, 2013. For more information and tickets, please visit http://starknakedtheatre.com or call (832) 866 - 6514.

Photo courtesy of Stark Naked Theatre Compnay.

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