A Look at Nardi’s Two Letters
Experiencing Live Theatre
November 14, 2006
Ken Murphy
It’s exceedingly difficult to get yourself excited to
see a theatrical production at your own school – in a
lecture hall, no less. Tony Nardi’s Two Letters puts to
practice the notion of bringing a production to the people rather
than making the people travel to the production. This practice
makes theatre accessible to practically anyone. For me, the
theatre experience is an escape from everyday life. However,
in my experience of Nardi’s production, my everyday life
surrounded me and overwhelmed me to a point that I was unable
to enjoy the production or even transport myself to a place
where I didn’t fear that the whole thing would turn into
a lecture.
Luckily, for me and most of the student-based audience, a lecture
is not what we received. Instead, what we received, felt more
like a sermon. The audience quietly and obediently listened
while Nardi, preaching from his lectern, volume rising and falling,
tempo breaking and ebbing, proclaimed the decay of theatrical
society and the proverbial hell in which the community currently
exists. Like I had many times done in church, I found my attention
waxing and waning, picking up pieces in the storyline that grabbed
my attention due to volume, imagery, or relevance. The rest
unfortunately, was lost.
Not to say that Nardi’s work lacked merit. The Two Letters
encompassed several pressing issues in present-day society and,
rather knowledgeably, traces some of these issues back in time,
sometimes to their roots. Issues included: Canadian politics
regarding the separation of Quebec as a province; Italo-Canadian
stereotyping; gender equality; and Native-American rights (to
name a few). In an intermingling of spoken English, French and
Italian, Nardi fervently and passionately addressed each of
these issues. Intelligent theatre is difficult to pull off.
Based on the audience’s reactions, most of Nardi’s
points were difficult to extract, usually due of the speed of
his ranting and his humorous points often went unnoticed or
were ignored. Nardi’s level of language sophistication
remained high throughout the production, save for times when
he parodied different characters in his stories. Eloquent words
were frequently interrupted by various expletives, thus making
the audience further feel the heat of the argument. Some may
argue that the numerous offensives were necessary to portray
fueled emotions, but I felt that it made his arguments less
credible. You wouldn’t swear at the Queen to make her
take you seriously. Throughout the productions, I kept wondering
to myself, “Am I unintelligent because I am disengaged?
Am I ignorant because I don’t absorb?” Realistically
speaking, Nardi’s letters are written, whether he realizes
it or not, for a limited audience – an intelligent audience
who sees the world from Nardi’s perspective. Individuals
who are in any way involved in the theatre and acting communities
would greatly benefit from watching Nardi’s piece. From
the beginning, these individuals would have solidarity with
Nardi, understand his motivations to write the letters, and
have a global sense of how the entire piece fits together. From
an outsider’s perspective, I was at a loss. Intelligent
theatre certainly has its place but this particular production
greatly narrowed its audience’s interest and appeal…or
was that the point? As for my feelings of disengagement, Nardi’s
letters were written for people who were not present at the
room, which was clear because Nardi did not address his audience.
Throughout the entire reading, Nardi glared menacingly at his
Macintosh laptop screen and very rarely made eye contact with
the audience. Nardi himself was disengaged from his audience.
No matter what the context, it’s never enjoyable watching
someone simply read aloud their presentation.
I know that ultimately theatre only requires that a story be
told between at least one actor and at least one audience member.
Nardi adhered to this concept throughout the span of his two-night,
one-man show, but I had to keep asking myself whether or not
I could find merit in theatre that didn’t feel like theatre.
I unavoidably returned to this point time and time again simply
because there was no set, no costumes, no props, no lighting,
and no real storyline. All of the key peripheral elements of
theatre were missing here and their absence was more distracting
than if they had actually been present.
There was no set. Traditionally, a set aids in transporting
the audience to the place where the story is set. In the case
of Nardi’s Two Letters, his stage is wherever he decides
to set up. As previously mentioned, this production took place
in a lecture hall at the University of Toronto. For a non-student
audience member, this might have been a unique experience for
them. For me, however, it was just another classroom where I
was going to have to spend another three hours of my school-week.
The first classroom Nardi presented in was quite large and made
the small audience seem even smaller. Having the audience sit
at the front of the hall helped make the space more intimate.
The room had poor lighting and the primary colour was white,
giving a sense of sterility that didn’t do justice to
the content of Nardi’s letters. The second classroom felt
more appropriate to the production since it was a bit smaller
and felt less sterile. For creators of any traveling theatre
company, it would serve them well to pick venues that are accessible
to the community but also enhance the production visually.
There were no characters. There was only Tony. All of the characters
that Nardi alluded to in his letters had to be imagined. Nardi
helped the audience to keep the characters separate by changing
his voice depending on who was “talking.” Nardi
was particularly good at illustrating the array of ‘ghosts’
in his everyday life that plague his life’s journey. This
was actually an effective technique that is key, I find, to
public storytelling or for ‘books on tape.’ This
also shows that productions need not have large casts.
There were no props. Actually, there was just one. Midway through
the first letter, Nardi tells the audience that his cell phone
is vibrating and he has to pick up a call. For the first 10
seconds of his phone conversation, I actually believed that
he was having a legitimate phone call. It wasn’t until
Nardi launched into another rant that I understood that this
was part of the act. Given the realism of the production and
the fact that it didn’t feel like a theatrical play, the
introduction of this prop was seamless. Any other prop in the
letters, a knife in a ghost’s neck for example, were illustrated
using mime or gesture. This helped provide mental visual cues
to the audience and helped break up the monotony of the reading.
There were no costumes. Nardi wore his everyday street wear.
Again, this is another element that Nardi could have capitalized
on in order to further draw attention to himself and make him
the focus of his production. But his plain black shirts and
white jeans made him easy to ignore. Nardi’s reading glasses
were fun to watch. During particularly intense moments, Nardi’s
face would grow red and his glasses would slowly slide down
his nose to the point of almost falling off until he would push
them back to his bridge.
There was no lighting. All of the fluorescent lights in the
lecture halls were left running throughout the production. This
did nothing to establish mood or atmosphere, nor did it help
direct the audience’s focus to Nardi. Since I could see
everything in the room, including the reactions of other audience
members, that’s where my focus went. I often found myself
looking at other people’s reactions rather than paying
attention to the reading. Lighting is something simple that
could have turned Nardi’s production from something that
was lecture-like into something out of the ordinary.
Stripped of all the peripherals, Nardi’s production was
left only with its content, leaving the audience with no real
global theatre experience. I think that by the beginning of
the presentation of the second letter, Nardi had noticed the
waning attention span of the young audience and actually urged
people to leave if they felt they were bored. While the act
itself was considerate, it didn’t raise hopes about the
second half of the production. The fact that most of the audience
members were present out of academic obligation kept everyone
in their seats. But I personally would have left if I thought
I could have. Eventually I got to the point where I just wanted
to get to the end of the production but Tony’s ‘ghosts’
kept interrupting. Tony seemed to find the ghosts as annoying
and intrusive as I did. Nardi’s Two Letters is an incredibly
insightful piece that deserves a good stint in the spotlight,
but I think a publication, rather than a production would do
Nardi’s work more justice.
ken.murphy@utoronto.ca
