LETTER ONE

 

Challenging Canadian Clichés
02.09.2009
By Anna Fuerstenberg
Rover Arts

I did not know the real meaning of tour de force until I caught Tony Nardi’s Letter Two at Espace Libre. Nardi has transformed letters – written in reaction to the stereotypical portrayal of Italian- Canadian characters in a Canadian TV series, and reviews of a production of a Goldoni play that perpetuated clichés about commedia dell’arte – into a work of art.

This could have been a colossal rant, but Nardi’s passion for culture and theatre and his own overwhelmingly brilliant performance turned that original anger and frustration into a memorable one-person flight of theatre.

As someone who was rigorously trained in the art of directing, I understood his disgust with directors who had not had any training. His cri de cœur for an actor-driven theatre was most convincing, but I would argue that both acting and directing are interpretive art and as a playwright I have some respect for directors who know their craft and are fearless in the pursuit of art.

Nardi’s hyperbolic writing style is so full of humour and his delivery so direct that, even when he uses metaphors of genocides and mass murders, he does not offend, but only makes his rage more humane.

It was humbling to hear the discussion afterwards when even the most lauded playwright in the audience talked about being guilty of silence in the face of mediocrity. It is a silence which corrodes art, she said. Although she had been reading the play on the overhead teleprompter in French, she had missed not a word.

There is an accepted common denominator in the theatre of English Canada which refuses to take risks. It has been decades since the Canada Council agreed that it should nurture Canadian theatre and Canadian themes. Nardi’s take on a play about the rise and fall of the Canadian grain elevator exposes the flaw in this kind of mainstream cultural flimsiness. Aren’t we ready to challenge our sense of identity enough to allow the multicultural artists among us to have a voice as well?

However, there is a new wave of English theatre in Quebec with which Nardi is altogether unfamiliar. One hopes that the theatre that is being fomented at this time of change and growth here will generate the kind of courage Letter Two provokes. There is no other experience like it, and I encourage one and all to catch this work. It will change the way you think about theatre, culture and the word Canadian.

Nardi concludes with a kind of commedia trial in which he demonstrates the art by attacking the judge, the sleeping audience member and one of the critics. His timing, gesticulation and machine gun rapid delivery could stand up against Danny Kaye’s best work. We were left laughing while grappling with the most profound questions of our métier.

Nardi spoke about once seeing a tightrope flung across two buildings and the artist crossing without a net. That, he explained, was real dramaturgy: the marriage between the need to survive and the craft of the tightrope walker. It also seemed to describe his performance perfectly, a man without a net practicing a perfect craft with only a laptop, a teleprompter and a few lights. Bravissimo.

Letter Two/Lettre Nº2 continues tonight, Friday and Saturday, 7 pm at Espace Libre, 1945 rue Fullum. Tickets: 514-521-4191. Performance in English with French surtitles.
Photo credit: Stéphane Dionne