The sorry state of our culture
May 3, 2008
MICHAEL POSNER
MPosner@globeandmail.com
What is the Canadian film, television and theatre community
going to do about the brilliant but very difficult Tony Nardi?
The 49-year-old Calabrian-born, Montreal-raised, Toronto-based
actor and writer, a two-time Genie winner and unquestionably
one of our finest talents, has spent the better part of the
past two years (and, not incidentally, his RRSP savings) mounting
what are surely the most provocative pieces of performance art
ever staged in this country.
Nardi doesn't just bite the hand that feeds him; he chews it
up and then spits it out.
All of this began when Nardi took offence at a job offer to
play the part of a stereotypical Italian character in a TV sitcom
- he declined, and eventually fired his agent. Soon after, he
read what he regarded as two lamentable local theatre reviews
of a production of Goldoni's A Servant of Two Masters - lamentable
because, in his judgment, the critics displayed woeful ignorance
of Commedia dell'Arte.
These events became catalysts in 2006 for what he called Two
Letters, back-to-back evenings of long dramatic monologues read
by Nardi from a laptop computer mounted on a podium. Then as
now, he used no stage, no costumes, no soundscapes, no special
effects, not even makeup.
The burden of his message, delivered with anger, sadness and
panache, was that Canadian culture is irrelevant, moribund and
mediocre, and largely content to remain that way. He was tough
on producers for creating schlock, tough on directors for directing
it, tough on his fellow actors for putting paycheques before
principles. Compromise is not a word in his vocabulary. And
clearly he's not a man seeking public office.
Two Letters garnered some favourable press, but no audience
to speak of. In the past year, apart from some episode work
on television, on the CBC's Intelligence, Nardi has kept a low
profile, working on his next incendiary venture in how not to
conduct public relations.
Now, he's back with Letter Three, formally known as ...And Counting!
Here, he chronicles his futile attempts to raise funds for his
endeavours, both from the usual bureaucratic suspects (Canadian,
Ontario and Toronto arts councils) and from Italian-Canadian
diaspora, the nuovo ricco, the media, academics, nabobs. That's
the first half of the evening, complete with some hilarious
and finely drawn caricatures of developers, editors, professors
and erstwhile community elders.
In the second half, Nardi uses accidental encounters with fellow
actors for some deeper personal explorations, including one
session, amid the Dickensian gloom of the Distillery district,
with a former employer and one of the city's leading theatrical
lights. He spares no one, least of all himself.
Here's the central problem with the show. A gifted writer as
well as actor, Nardi overwrites. He finds a dexterous way to
say something, and then he finds another one, and by the fourth
dexterous offering you're exhausted. Except in bank accounts,
less is almost always more. Nardi tends to overindulge his muse
and thus overstays his welcome by about 30 minutes. Abridged,
this piece would perhaps attract a wider audience.
And it should, because the man definitely has something to say,
something Canadians ought to hear and contemplate. He's not
wrong about our standards of excellence. They aren't high enough.
We have, too often, been willing to tolerate a culture of excuses
and alibis. He contends that a night in the theatre should utterly
transform you - "make you want to jump into the Trevi Fountain
and abolish hunger." Seize the day, Nardi notes, because
"the time after this time is very long."
Understandably, not many people in the cultural world are prepared
to say these things. It tends to make the phone stop ringing.
For that alone, Nardi gets credit for serious cojones or, in
this case, coglioni. He wants all of us, not least himself,
to try harder, do better.
I only wish we were able to see him more regularly on our stages
and TV sets. A major talent is being marginalized and, in my
opinion, wasted.
... And Counting! continues in various Toronto venues on May
5, 6, 9, 10, 17 and 22. For more information: http://www.twoletters.ca.
