Re: Tony Nardi frappe encore
By Tony Nardi
July 19, 2010
If my stating that Kelly Nestruck listing The Sopranos among his favourite TV shows on his facebook page is dishonest on my part and weakens my argument (due to where I obtained the information and its ‘irrelevance’ to Nestruck’s critical view of Letter Three) I will accept responsibility for failing to elaborate on the point.
First: My citing open-to-the-public information from Nestruck’s facebook page is not quoting personal information he had intended to keep private. One posts viewable information on facebook to publicly state one’s views, likes and dislikes. It’s there for all to see, otherwise only his facebook friends would have access to the information.
Secondly: The Sopranos’ reference is very relevant to Nestruck’s limited “review” of Letter Three and any notion that he stayed within professional (critical analysis) boundaries. Nestruck reported untruths in English Canada’s national newspaper. The Sopranos ‘revelation’ uncovers one of his untruths: his apparent problem with the “bile, profanity and violence” in Letter Three and theatrical (dramatic) works in general.
Third point: Nestruck crossed the line a few times, mainly framing his piece within a cultural (tribal) context, implying that the Calabrian-born Nardi cannot possibly speak for the cheery-thirsty English-Canadian theatregoers and theatre practitioners, that dwindling ‘majority’ that presumably (and too often) sets the cultural standard for all the other ‘secondary’ tribes. He attempted to draw the lines for English-Canada’s theatre, defining what it should be and who qualifies to represent it and speak on its behalf.
As for being factual, Nestruck cherry-picked items from Letter Three, misquoted them, and then blamed me for not being factual. For me to state that the Globe and Mail often dedicates front page to the Oscars and a footnote to the Genies is a fact. That Canada produces, for the most part, cheery, sub-par, inorganic films (or theatre) is also a fact. The two statements are not contradictory; they are related: one feeds the other. If a society and its ‘free’ press does not value or support (by covering) its film artists (and culture) the viewership dwindles, so does the debate, eventually so does the volume of films (or culture) produced and, ultimately, so does the quality. Where’s the contradiction?
Nestruck not only passed judgment on a theatrical work he did not like (his prerogative) but disqualified Letter Three as theatre WITHOUT SUPPLYING EVIDENCE of how the Letter violates the concept and practice of the theatrical act. Nestruck was short on facts and knowledge of theatre.
Furthermore, he used his purported personal tolerance level for bile, violence and profanity in dramatic works as a moral yardstick and barometer by which to judge a theatrical work, and, he felt entitled to broadcast his “moral distaste” for bile, violence and profanity, such as he apparently witnessed in Letter Three (debatable – in my view), coast-to-coast, while clearly proving in facebook that he does not abide by that ‘moral principle’ but conveniently uses it as a tool (weapon) against a theatrical work he doesn’t understand or like.
Worse, buoyed by his moral indignation to Letter Three’s “bile, violence and profanity”, and his assertion that the Letter is not theatre, Nestruck played executioner by sending a direct message to the arts councils (whose officers have yet to read or see any Letter for that matter), applauding them for denying funding for the Letters.
Since when does this qualify as theatre criticism?
If Nestruck chooses to venture outside the realm of theatre (and theatre criticism) it’s totally legitimate for me – or anyone - to respond and expose the falsehoods in his piece.
An inquisition may be a better place for Nestruck than a national newspaper. Perhaps the latter has become the former when dealing with artists from ‘other’ cultures who take issue with “Canadian” theatre and culture. It all comes back to the definition of Canada and Canadians and if the ‘others’ have sufficiently Uncle Tom-ed their existence to qualify as acceptable or reasonably accommodated Canadians.
If, in your view, actors willing to speak out can be counted on one hand, Nestruck’s irresponsible and near slanderous use of his pen will make sure to maintain the present status quo among the many actors who believe they have no right to a voice. And Nestruck knows this. He’s taking advantage of a cultural climate that puts him above the art and that (through a fear-infested theatrical climate and culture) appoints him and critics in general as arbiters of and authorities on the art.
If Nestruck, the journalist, believes he has a right to publicly state in the G & M only what he utters from one side of his mouth (his objection to “Letter Three's "violence, bile and profanity" that apparently threatens the “CHEERY reality” of - and his prescription for - Canadian Theatre and culture), I have the right to point out what Nestruck, the person, publicly states from the other side of his mouth on his facebook page: his contradictory opinion. We know that no one watches The Sopranos for its non-violent, wholesome and CHEERY Lawrence Welk type entertainment. Anyone who has seen the TV show knows that.
So why the contradiction? Because it’s not a contradiction: it’s a double standard. Nestruck wants it both ways. His concern has NOTHING to do with violence, bile and profanity, or the degree of any one, but with the target: the one on the receiving end. That's his concern and fear. The target in Letter Three is English-Canada's cultural reality, theatre and funding! That’s HIS cultural turf, apparently! His birthright I’m messing with! I wasn’t even born here! I have no right! I’m a suicide-bombing Calabrian terrorist! What right do I have to “blow up” all that his Family Compact ancestors built?! That's where it gets tribal. That’s where HE gets tribal. That’s the point.
Nestruck is NOT offended by the The Sopranos bile, violence and profanity because it deals with a tribe he – thankfully – can’t call his own, and that he can actually afford to laugh at - from a comfortable distance (his living-room couch). The Sopranos is to him what going down to any Little Italy is to many ‘non-Italians” like him, especially after a soccer game, enjoying an “espresso, gelati, or biscotti” while watching – from a comfortable distance or café patio - the post-game chemical reaction of ‘wild’, ‘violent’ Latin DNA and the runway procession of 905 (or 450) Italian-Canadian spoiled airheads. That's also the point. I would have no problem with Nestruck taking issue with the 905 (or 450) Italian-Canadian spoiled airheads swarming the Little Italies of their respective cities in search of an identity. The perverse is in the fact that people (like Nestruck) can tolerate and defend the extreme violence and brutality of a culturally offensive fictional TV show (The Sopranos) but can't deal with (are actually offended by) the “anger and violence” stemming from a Canadian reality dramatically expressed in a theatre presentation (Letter Three).
Nestruck’s facebook admission and the subtext running through it and his ‘review’ are obvious to anyone who reads between the lines.
Moreover, as a journalist Nestruck should have known that The Sopranos is seen as racially offensive by many Americans and Canadians of Italian extraction. People and organizations (the Federation of Italian-American Democratic Organizations in the ‘60s, The National Italian-American Foundation, The National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations and the anti-defamation arm of The Order of the Sons of Italy in America and others) have taken issue with The Sopranos time and time again; they NEVER said that Sopranos-like characters did not really exist in America, Canada or elsewhere (and from all cultural backgrounds). They were not complaining about the show’s “finely wrought characterizations, crackling dialogue and compelling plot-lines”. They had an issue with the American film and TV industry forever wasting all that talent and energy on ONE early 20th Century stereotype (the Italian-American gangster) that has been dragged into the 21st Century and shoved into people’s faces the way James Cagney worked a grapefruit, because it’s convenient, makes money, and everyone needs a cultural monkey to laugh at, and, that this (unfortunate) trend and practice – definitely not limited to Italians in North America - is ultimately culturally limiting and offensive. The danger being that TV fiction speaks for reality for many, or, worse, fiction can, in the minds of many, override (the cultural) reality. And no one bats an eye. A journalist is expected to bat both eyes. A journalist working for the Globe and Mail should set the standard.
The Sopranos seems to be a favourite among Canadian theatre critics advocating cheery, dinner theatre drama. In Letter Two I state that theatre critic Richard Ouzounian used an Italian-American TV character (Carmela Soprano) as a cultural reference and a ‘performance’ yardstick to judge the performance of the one actress who actually knew what she was doing in the ‘commedia” production of the Amorous Servant. For refusing to succumb to cultural “classical” acting clichés, to Uncle-Tom her performance and engage in minstrel theatre, ingredients many (including the theatre critic) had expected or paid to see, and that some of her acting partners were eager to deliver, she was branded a Carmela Soprano.
When and if you see Letter One you will hopefully understand and revisit my comments to Nestruck’s ‘review’ and your reaction vis a vis The Sopranos’ ‘revelation’. Nestruck’s comments and logic – what he likes (The Sopranos) and what he doesn’t (Letter Three) and the reasons for it - follow a disturbing pattern. He’s not thinking. We all lose.
Like many in English Canada, Nestruck seems to inhabit (is stuck in) a pre-1967 English-Canada reality. This is not saying little since it’s possible he was born after ’67. He appears incapable of autocritical views and analysis befitting an English-Canadian society that has less problem paying out money (and tons of it) for a Queen’s Royal visit (in 2010) than it does for culture.
I have no problem with the fact that I was born in Calabria. I do object to how Nestruck’s uses my Calabrian roots (the apparent context and purpose). It’s worth quoting the opening line in your review of Letter Three - written one day before Nestruck’s piece:
“Chaque fois qu'on parle de l'acteur canadien anglais Tony Nardi, on souligne ses origines italiennes. Je me suis demandé quelques fois d'où vient cette insistance à souligner cette particularité culturelle, alors que Nardi est un vrai Torontois, qui a vécu presque toute sa vie au Canada. Mais il est vrai qu'il n'a rien du flegme brittannique de certains de ses collègues canadiens-anglais. Chez lui, le geste et l'énergie sont d'une indéniable latinité, et sa colère gronde au rythme du tambour battant.”
A friend asked me if your statement was not the Gallic equivalent to Nestruck’s apparent subtext. Frankly, I don’t believe so, I said. I do know that I have read enough of Philippe Couture’s stuff to give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s earned it. I can’t say the same for Nestruck. There is no evidence that Nestruck reflects on (or shares) a journalist’s reasons for underlining a person’s cultural origins. There is evidence that he’s trapped in – guided by - tribal emotion when faced with debating or analyzing matters of (Canadian) culture. The patronizing aspect is that he narrows the cultural demographics of the Globe readership as if it were made up entirely of only two ethnic groups: English and Scottish.
The fact that Nestruck’s falls victim to exactly what you said in your review - without him being aware of it – or supplying or questioning his reasons for it - tells a story.
It will be hard for Nestruck to argue against or ignore a growing sentiment in Canada as expressed by Billy Weathers (on the Globe website in response to Nestruck’s piece):
“The problem is that theatre in English speaking Canada is mostly irrelevant given the fact that it is dominated by a clique of white Anglo Saxon protestant that for the most part don’t even like theatre
“Tony Nardi is saying that basically critics don’t pick that up and white wash everything to the point where the theatre is so vanilla milk toast in Toronto and Vancouver that really it is just a bad joke and the point is that this isn’t going to change for probably fifty years till the demographics change there are people who love theatre and Kelly Nestruk you being one am sure to have sat through Nardi’s rap but theatre is not respected in Anglo Canada never has been because of the methodists and calvinists who abhore any kind of personal discovery or journey in effect Mr Nardi is saying that society is stuck and without a vibrant theatre the culture loses out the thing here is that nobody wants to associate with the meanness of it all.”
Or this response from Carrots 1 also posted on The Globe’s Website:
”You'd have to live the freelance life for three or four decades to know how real is the frustration of Canadian Theatre Artists and Creators. What is being funded has so little to do with Canada, contemporary or otherwise. We've had enough drek from Broadway and the West End, recycled endlessly, coast to coast.”
With his brand of reporting and limited “critical analysis” Nestruck essentially invited me (or anyone) to – at the very least – expose his double standard and untruths. For Nestruck to misuse his pen and wield his ‘petit pouvoir’ in a national newspaper is journalistically ‘criminal’, confirms the pettiness of Canadian theatre and culture and its irrelevance and less than world-class status. He’s banking on a series of nights at the THEATAH, not a life in the theatre. He wants recreation not creation. He wants to be as cheery when he walks out of the theatre as when he walked in.
Backwards is where Nestruck wants to take his readership (and theatre). To a time that never was but when fairytale dreams were embraced as a way to pass the time and ignore recording or commenting on the actual times. Nestruck’s pen and the Globe and Mail readership expect and deserve more than what he’s willing to offer and commit to. He should help push the envelope beyond what previous generations managed to accomplish. He should continue from where Nathan Cohen left off. He should resist turning back the clock and fearing what he doesn’t know and operating and condemning from that standpoint. He should not propagate publicly with his milk-toast reviews that we move backward faster than past generations moved forward. He should not attempt to pre-date Cohen by decades and encourage theatre artists to run for cover In the Sewers of Lvov. I’m sure this analogy will appear far-fetched to Nestruck. To those who know, or have lived it, or who recognize and pay attention to templates, I’m sure the analogy fits. The degree is usually a matter of just that: degree. And as long as the template is in place, the degree will usually take care of itself. Always does.
There was a time when actors were killed for what they said on stage. The authorities did not permit actors to hide behind their professionalism or toolbox (craft). It was not JUST the actor’s - or writer’s - words that were struck from the stage but the actor and writer. The person. The life itself was struck. Ended. Today, the striking from the stage and executions are subtler and often aided and abetted by the actor. Isn’t great to see how far we’ve come?
(We also know that the Nuremberg and The Hague trials didn’t have much patience for war criminals who tried to separate the soldier from the human being, the public servant from the private citizen: the former followed orders and could kill, apparently, but the latter was an open-minded, freedom-loving, people-loving, classical-music aficionado and so deserves our pity and consideration. We are asked to excuse the professional in favour of the person hidden within or to excuse the person within in favour of the professional (status) that grants him immunity.)
Given this reality, what makes anyone think that a journalist – or critic – can conveniently hide behind his professionalism, while spewing contradictory statements and beliefs and opinions that fall outside his professional duties and responsibilities? Who is going to take issue with the theatre critic if not the actor?
In reading my initial response to Nestruck, a well respected and connected Italian-Canadian “community” leader, a friend, taking a page and a character right out of Letter One – the Dottore, suggested that there is always a right time for breaking the silence, where the words that follow a decent silence can have powerful, seismic repercussions. Now's not the time, he said. It's apparently never been the right time - yet. And I have to live with that, apparently, if I want to get ahead and have my voice heard - one day. This wise community leader is apparently qualified to gauge the right time for things - to break the silence - and has generously promised to cue me when the right time comes. “PAUSE. SILENCE… and WAIT (I’ll give you the signal)”. Until then, I should perfect and polish the PAUSE and SILENCE. Besides, he said (using a soccer analogy in honor of the World Cup) a game can be played defensively and not always in "attack”.
I've known this community leader for 20 years. I’m still waiting for his cue. And the goaltender has been pelted with many “shots on net” and the game no longer looks like a game but a one-sided slaughter, an execution. But be patient, I’m told. Or better yet, “become an Uncle Tomasso and disappear into the crowd. It’s filled with Uncle Toms. That way, you won’t stand out.”
This over-educated community-leader friend forgets that nobody marched on the Romes of Europe in the ‘20’s. Societies willingly opened their capitol-city doors to the fascists from the inside. Sweets don’t cause tooth decay by jumping into our mouths. We do by sucking on them each day, believing they won’t harm us. That’s what history tells us.
How long can a person or community LIVE or HOLD a pause, or a silence? Even a community of actors? What is justifiable? According to whom? Who sets the time limit? I do have a sense. It’s not a pretty one. And it's in the world-record zone, I'm sure.
There are no sides in this. We all lose.
Tony Nardi
N.B. My response in trying to address Nestruck’s 'review' and untruths was read by only a handful – including you and Nestruck. Hardly a level playing field. And unlike your comprehensive and much-appreciated response to my letter, Nestruck’s response was: “I rest my case.” I say to that: Ay, there's the rub… and the difference.
