This is KPBS Midday Edition. I am Maureen Cavanaugh. If you do something for a living that your kid at but do not like, can you and should you change? That is one of the big questions asked in an improbable way by a new dark comedy at the La Jolla Playhouse. It marks the departure for Mat Smart in terms of style and subject and return to his old grad school stomping grounds. Joining me is Mat Smart whose new play is called "Kill Local" . Welcome the program.Thank you for have me.I read that this started in your head with an image you could not shake. Tell us about that.I write a lot of heartfelt sentimental family or romantic place. I wanted to do something different. I had an image in my head of a man tied up and a woman with a gun. And to make it bloodied and brutal and go from there. It is really a 180 from the rest of my work.Is that how "Kill Local" begins with that same ?Yes. You see a guy hanging from the ceiling at a woman with a gun and she waits for the Geo to take him out.Who is the Geo? Back in the play, that is the waiting for the go. You do not want to say go because go means go. It is a funny thing enough play where you are waiting for the final word to pull the trigger.You must give us an overview for the plot. This sounds mysterious.It is an office comedy but the office is being assassins and it takes place in an unfinished building under construction. It starts with the first scene and one thing goes wrong and that starts the rest of the play going but it happens and that unfinished building over the course of 36 hours.This violent imagery is a way for you to ask questions about the extent of change we can make in our lives.I mean, when it is life and death circumstances, you can push the boundaries of the drama and account -- comedy. The heart of it is this idea of a lot of times, we feel like we start doing something and we love it and we have success then, we start to question is this really what I want to do with the rest of my life? Does this mesh with having a family? No matter what that is, I think you can ask those questions of any professions and in this case, it happens to be they are paid assassins expect there is a violence warning. It sounds from the opening a little unsettling to watch.Yes. It is bloodied. There is violence on the stage. There will be some things that have never been done on stage before. There is shocking moments but it is not gratuitous but it is intense.You made a departure from your typical relationship and travel oriented place. Why this far? Why assassins and men in bondage ?It is important to get out of your comfort sons as an artist and a person and explore the world or ideas that you have not before. I thought it would be interesting to try to approach this kind of vicious world but with the heartfelt family drama or comedy that I like to write.When it comes to your travels, I read that you have been to all 50 states and to wall seven continents. There are an awful lot of people who make it to Antarctica.I was a janitor on the science base five years ago. I wrote a couple of plays about it cents. I love to get out of my own bubble and into places where life is different from what I know. I wanted to go to a place and a finish that.How do you think your travel has affected your playwriting ?For me, I want to take the audience on a journey and it starts with taking a journey myself and trying to bring part of that unfamiliar world to theater.There is a another influence I would like to talk to you about. Your family has a heavy science background. Your father was a physicist. Your sister works for NASA. They are trying to answer big questions. Do you think that draws you to try to answer big questions in your place ?Absolutely. I dad was working on an experience. The big question that they were trying to figure out is is the universe going to keep expanding or collapse ?That is a major question. I try to do that in terms of the heart and the soul.You are back at UC San Diego after graduating 13 years ago. After your travels and your work, what sticks with you from your training?My mentors when I was here come the playwrights, I would go into an office and they would say, I love the play up until page 50. The other office say I hated the play up until page 50 and I love the rest of it. It helped me take in different kinds of notes and ideas from different people and kind of put that through my own inspiration for the play and try to stick to why I was writing the play which is taking into account the different viewpoints.I have been speaking with Mat Smart. His play , "Kill Local" is running through August 27. Thank you.My pleasure.
Playwright Mat Smart is tackling a big question in his latest play, "Kill Local," at the La Jolla Playhouse: Are there aspects of ourselves that are impossible to change?
But while most of Smart's plays have been grounded dramas, "Kill Local" focuses on a family of female assassins, making the comedy violently dark. Smart said he was inspired by an image in his head of a man tied to a chair and a woman with a gun, which is how the show starts.
"I don’t usually write violent stuff. Usually it’s about love and the travels I go on," he said. "But I wanted to try something outside my comfort zone. I didn’t know where it would go from there, but I was riding the wave of that image."
Smart graduated from UC San Diego's MFA program in 2004 and has since traveled the world, visiting all 50 states and all seven continents (including a three-month stint as a janitor at McMurdo Station in Antarctica). He grew up in a Chicago suburb and his physicist father worked at nearby Fermilab, one of the most powerful particle accelerators in the world. He remembers visiting the lab on weekends and playing near a chamber kept incredibly cold with the help of high-powered magnets.
"We could staple a string to a piece of paper and put paper clips around the edges and fly it like a kite," Smart said. "But we also talked about big questions, like how the universe works. I didn’t go into science, but I ask similarly large questions."
Smart joins KPBS Midday Edition on Thursday to discuss his inspirations and how what UC San Diego training has stuck with him the most.
