Interview God Of Carnage’s David Pasquesi

A Second City alum and one half of the comedy duo T.J. and Dave, David Pasquesi is one of the city’s most prominent improvisers. He returns to scripted theater in Goodman’s production of Yasmina Reza’s God Of Carnage, the Tony Award-winning play about two married couples that meet to discuss a physical altercation between their children. Pasquesi spoke with The A.V. Club about the transition from improvisation to scripted work and modern parenting techniques.

The A.V. Club: When was the last time you were on stage in Chicago in a show that wasn’t improvised?

David Pasquesi: Here. The last time, I was at Goodman in Romance during the Mamet Festival.

AVC: How has your improvisation experience informed your scripted work?

DP: I don’t believe it is that different. They both complement the other. The only way improvisation works is if you’re paying attention, and that skill is very helpful in everything, including scripted work. Just constantly attempting to be present and listening. Every time you improvise, you work on that, and it helps me with the scripted stuff, the performance. Now the remembering the lines, it doesn’t help with at all. It’s a bit of a challenge, because in improvisation, you can’t say the wrong thing. As T.J. [Jagodowski] points out, when you’re doing a play, all the words are wrong except the next one. But in improvisation they’re all right. But in scripted work there’s only one. I really enjoy the challenge of both.

AVC: Yasmina Reza’s characters are very believable. What happens in rehearsal to build the relationships between everyone involved?

DP: It’s a really fun group—Mary Beth Fisher, Keith Kupferer, Beth Lacke. Actually, Keith Kupferer was in The Old Neighborhood with me, and I’ve known Beth, and this is the first time I’ve worked with Mary Beth. It’s really got that ensemble feel, we’re all in it all the time together except for a couple small exits. But what we’re trying to figure out is how these alliances shift. The couples come together, and then they start to relate, and then they start to fight, and what we’re trying to explore is the dynamic within the group.

AVC: It’s reminiscent of Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? in a way. Similar kinds of alliances that shift as characters start drinking more.

DP: There is a lot to that. And I agree with you, the only two plays of [Reza’s] I’ve read are Art and this one, and the characters are very believable, and very relatable. If I don’t recognize myself in some of this—first of all, if I don’t recognize myself in some of this I’m not being very honest [laughs]—but if I don’t recognize myself, I certainly know people like that.

AVC: What are your feelings on contemporary parenting techniques?

DP: That’s one of the things I really like about this play. These things happen. These absurd meetings and discussions about kids being kids. The overprotective, litigious nature of this society is included in this play. And this is not an American play, it’s French, so it’s interesting to see that this goes on everywhere. It’s not that they’re over-involved. They’re attempting to control the situation to make face, but it doesn’t really have all that much to do with parenting. I grew up in a time when we just went out in the morning, and a bell rang in the evening and we all went home. All the regulations were developed by the little group we were running around with; we governed ourselves. There was very little parental influence unless some major event occurred.

AVC: Why do you think God Of Carnage has seen so much success stateside, being a French play?

DP: It was surprising to me that, wow, this is exactly like it is here. Perhaps it’s a modern thing, or maybe it’s an urban phenomenon. Probably in rural and farm areas, the kids still do run around, but this protective nature of upbringing instead of letting kids be kids seems to be global.

AVC: How do you build your characters?

DP: By reading the play and rereading it and trying to see just how much I can get out of the words. What has she written about this guy, what are the other people saying about this guy? Most of it is just in the words, and then you get help from your director. I had my own ideas before rehearsal just from reading it, but then when you come in and actually see how these other people react, things change.

AVC: And that goes back to the improvisation.

DP: Yeah. You can’t do improvisation well and have pre-conceived ideas.