The gutsiest role this actor will ever play
Tony Nardi takes on the world of English Canadian theatre
with a two-part monologue, writes Michael Posner
November 6, 2006
MICHAEL POSNER
MPosner@globeandmail.com
Tony Nardi is about to make himself very unpopular.
Certainly, what he's about to do is unprecedented in Canadian
theatre and requires no small amount of courage. Or chutzpah.
Or foolishness. Or all of the above, perhaps.
Starting tonight, Nardi -- one of the country's finest actors,
winner of two Genies and a Gemini nomination this year for his
work in the miniseries Il Duce Canadese -- is taking to the
stage in what amounts to an Émile Zola style J'accuse,
a one-man show that constitutes an indictment of Canada's performing
arts, or at least those aspects of it that Nardi knows best.
He's calling the production Two Letters, delivered on consecutive
evenings. Each show runs about two hours, followed by questions
and answers.
Letter One, focusing on film and television, emerged from a
17-page missive Nardi wrote last year to the producers of the
sitcom Rent-A-Goalie. He'd been asked to audition, but was so
offended by the Italian stereotype of the character in the script
that he sat down and unburdened himself of opinions that had
been on his mind for some time. There was no reply.
Letter Two evolved from a 75,000-word essay that Nardi sent
to two Toronto theatre critics, The Globe and Mail's Kamal Al-Solaylee
and the Toronto Star's Richard Ouzounian, after reading their
reviews of Pleiades Theatre's production of Carlo Goldoni's
1752 play, The Amorous Servant in November, 2005. Nardi had
seen the show and felt that nobody had properly understood it
-- neither the director, nor the critics. It thus became the
pretext for exploring what Nardi calls our "actor-less
culture." The piece is set in Hell.
In preparation for his readings, Nardi held about 30 workshop
sessions with small invited audiences, then incorporated some
of their responses into the Letters.
At the heart of his broad critique is the claim that Canada's
English-language theatre is largely irrelevant -- populated
by mediocre directors and a talented but cowed pool of actors
who have become compliant pawns, afraid to challenge the system
for fear of losing work. Everyone knows the theatrical emperor
wears no clothes, Nardi says. Artistic directors know it, their
boards know it, actors know it, but check their reservations
at the door, even audiences know it. But everyone pretends otherwise,
pretends that they are mounting or seeing work of quality. "The
audience goes to the theatre ready to play its role."
In an authentic culture, Nardi insists, theatre is a vital need,
not an excuse for an evening out. "We don't need theatre
to survive in English Canada, as [the late] Nathan Cohen warned
us. People use numbers to justify quality, but that's nonsense.
McDonald's sells a lot of hamburgers. It's still junk."
Although English Canadians often pride themselves on being
the world's third-largest centre of English-language theatre,
it's a meaningless distinction, Nardi says. "We have nothing
to show for it. We are self-congratulatory about appreciating
theatre, but we don't really care for the act of theatre itself.
It festivals celebrate
Shaw and Shakespeare. You don't see Quebec mounting festivals
for Racine and Molière. I'm not a separatist, but that's
a genuine culture. English Canadians live in a country of perceptions,
as opposed to seeing what's really there."
He decries attempts to contemporize classic plays -- like a
National Arts Centre production of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People
adapted a few years ago to reflect the Walkerton, Ont., E.coli
tragedy. "No," says Nardi. "It's a play about
confronting the status quo. But if you replace the work with
a PR concept, you miss the central relevance of the work. And
where's the actor in that? Nowhere. A prop."
Nardi concedes that there is a handful of able directors in
the country, "and they know who they are." But most,
he contends, simply aren't up to the task. He endorses the view
expressed by Britain's Simon Callow in his 1984 book, Being
an Actor, that unless a director can enhance the relationship
between actor and writer, he or she should get out of the way.
He cites a remark said to have been made by legendary British
director Peter Brook, after seeing a number of shows across
the country. Asked for his view of English Canadian theatre,
Brook simply said: "Poor them."
In addition to his recent film work (Il Duce Canadese and Indian
Summer: The Oka Crisis), Nardi, born in Calabria, Italy, and
raised in Montreal, has been writing movie scripts of his own,
including one set during Prohibition. He says that he and his
colleague, Montreal director Paul Tana, have pulled out of a
couple of production agreements because of creative differences.
"You get to the point where they think it should be done
their way. We've tried that in Canada. It's not working. We've
tried making sitcoms like Americans. We should do our own thing."
In one meeting with Telefilm Canada, he recalls, an official
said, "We have to like the central character."
"I said, 'Who says?' So he says, 'Well, don't we?' I said,
'Well, let's talk about it. Do you know the film Raging Bull?
How about La Dolce Vita?' " Nardi won a final round of
development money.
Nardi has never been reluctant to challenge entrenched interests.
At 21, he mounted a play in Montreal that explored the city's
Italian community and was warned to cease and desist. He refused.
A few years ago, objecting to another poorly written Italian
stereotype, he told his then-agent he would not audition
for the film. The casting agent, Jon Comerford, then threatened
to blackball the agency's roster of clients unless Nardi read
for the part. His agent begged him to read. He declined and
fired the agent.
"I am not a professional Italian," he later wrote
in a letter to ACTRA. "I'm a professional actor. . . .
I'm not ashamed to be Italian. On the contrary. It's playing
a cultural [negative] stereotype I have a problem with."
Two Letters, Nardi says, effectively constitutes an artist's
statement about the world. "We have no time left to waste
words, in print or on stage, but we act as if we had all the
time in the world. We have to speak the truth. Can't we discuss
these things? What does it say about us that in a Toronto Life
article about Richard Ouzounian, only one person was willing
to comment on the record? We have to start the process of coming
out of the grave."
What does Nardi expect from this exercise? Provoking a lively
debate would satisfy him, but he says the performing arts in
Canada will remain largely a sham until the actor gains more
centrality. "The actor is theatre. It helps if you have
a great play. But the theatre is in those living figures on
stage. It's not aboa director's concept or the costumes or the
lighting designer. It's about an actor making you laugh or cry."
