SECONDA PARTE
A Continuation in the Study of Calabrian-born actor, Tony Nardi’s “3 letters”, commedia del arte deluxe, in the context of the Canadian Critical Mindset Distress Disorder.(CCMDD)
DOS DOGS PARTES SUM IN-BETWEEN-THE-CRACKS-BARK-THE-DOCS
“The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valour..” Aristotle (the Greeks called it Arete, there is none of it now)
In the 1920’s the great theoretician of the Theatre of Cruelty, the French actor Antonin Artaud railed against the deadly theatre of the bourgeoisie of France, in a Age of real, coming, unpretended terrors, a cunning time that would soon call forth the atrocities of Nazism and Stalinism, to bear witness to something no civilization could have ever imagined;the concentration camp, the Gulag and virulent Corporatism.
In his book “The Theatre and its Double”, he wrote about the actor “signaling through the flames.” Mr. Artaud died penniless in a madhouse. The horrors were yet to come and the flames he spoke of became all too real, all too virulent, as the Century of Horror and War, of Dresden and Hiroshima began. Mr. Artaud’s theatre of cruelty and silent scream was not to be heard. His determination to shatter the falsehood of reality went unseen and unheard. His desire to conquer the tyranny of meaning and language, forgotten and ignored. Reality usurped it.
Surrealism and Futurism were replaced by The 3 Stooges, Hitler and Bugs Bunny, Stalingrad and Auswitzch. The “real” had drowned it all out. The “surreal” and the unimaginable had come all too real. All too imaginable. The surreal had become the real.
The invention of the technology of TV alone proved that. Internet and Cyber-space proves it to the nth degree everyday. Human proportions are no longer valid, reliable or important. The “actor” has been eclipsed.He has become in effect an “action doll” or as the Italian director of emptiness in the midst of meaning, Antonioni called him a“moveable space.”.But even “moveable space” is preferable to the reality of Reality TV and corporatist filmmaking and the current state of the Canadian theatre.
There is no need for theatre, not anymore. There is no need for Aristotelian valour, manly or otherwise. What is Bunel and Alfred Jarry compared to Facebook? What is cruelty? What is the “3 letters?”Why would Aristotle even bring it up? All actors are Johnny Fontanes.
And yet,this is the context for the delivery of Mr Nardi’s 3 letters. This is the new reality of an unreal world.And Mr Nardi has delivered it with great force, using only the Actors tools,signaling though the flames with the voice and the body.Mr Nardi is not Johhny Fontane, and the critics have a huge problem with that. If all actors are Johhny Fontanes and Mr Nardi is an actor, then Mr Nardi is a Johhny Fontance. But if he is not then what is he?
What does it matter if Facebook is the new theatre; the theatre of our Age?A man walking a lobster, on the street, means nothing.We now have lizards dressed as bankers and insurance brokers.The hidden measure of success is money and only money and everyone is now an actor for 15 minutes. Facebook is the new Cineplex Odeon. And pornography. The social currency is an extension of voyeuristic free enterprise based upon one’s societal stock and stack shored up by tons of currency.This is the only standard.This is the neo-cenosure,the gold standard,which is no longer a standard. But then neither is the American Buck. What is it then? Is it horror? Terror? Torture? Censorship? Prisons? Being a winner now means that you can say “duh, duh” countless times and not be gagged or even masked.What is the thermometer of complaint, the sonar scan of feeling, the magnetoscope of correct, manly action- i.e. valor as it was once referred to? What is the “3 letters?”
In this world everyone is now an actor,in the same manner that everyone is now a stockbroker and derivatives trader, and rockstar and fashion model and newscaster.Its all interchangeabl bleeps bops and scans with endless clip , and means nothing.The medium is the message. And the message is clear.Crtics are undertakers, bad ones.
Facebook and Lavalife,Youtube and Cyberspace have usurped human proportion and consciousness, Matrix-like.This then is the new creative currency of our times in an Age of Hiltoniana, an age of Trump, a “bushed” age. A slick and sickened age filled with Babel&Detritus Inc.The theatre has become a limited liability. The sheer level of idiocy on the part of the critical response proves it.In 1983, actor/director Andre Gregory announced it in his film “My Dinner with Andre”.In 2010 Tony Nardi rescuscitated the Artaudian corpse, asking the question; Why does it refuse to die? Why did it and why hasn’t it been buried?
“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”
Why underline his orgins period? So why is Mr. Nardi doing staring into a MacPro and talking? Why bother? The Critics on one side, Dogg the Bounty Hunter and Celebrity Rehap on the other. A million bugs bunny “actors.” Acting all the time in the age of 24/7. Why is there in fact any theatre anymore?Telecommunication and CyberSpace have, as Marshal McLuen pointed out almost 50 years,transformed the entire audience of the planet into actors. Is there any audience left or has it evaporated into space? Why not become a Roman Orator, like Cicero? An apologist like Socrates? A Dialectician? A lecturer? A madman?A mathematician of words, using derivative thoughts and derivative action? Why create the “3 letters?”
In the Dog/Doc Age, these sorts of arguments present seeming irrelevant questions to irrelevant answers. There can be no relevant actors in irrelevant times.When the audience can no longer bear to hear or see then what is the true nature of the original theatre? What is an actor and what can he “act” other than cops, drugdealers, and mafia lawyer? What is theatre? What is a Tony Nardi?Why speak? Why rant? Why signal? What a piece of work is man! Why speak, Mr.Nardi?
CRITICAL REPORT,DATELINE; NUMBLAND
Tony Nardi is back again, with his Two Letters … And Counting! show, which is more or less a solo rant by a disgruntled actor who tears into the Canadian theatrical establishment with the dual war cries of “Mediocrity!” and “Inauthenticity!”. Theirs, not his, I’m assuming.
Yet Another Canadian Critic
The Critic assumes correctly. We know Mr. Tony Nardi is an actor” he is part of the Canadian Cultural landscape in definitio”. He has written directed produced acted in countless shows both in English in French and Calabrian, including the Quebecois classics “La Deroute, and La Sarrasin. Including his first hit play “Storia Del Immigrante, An Immigrants tale which he played to packed house at 21 in Montreal, so why isn’t he acting?Why is he concerned with the dual cry of mediocrity and inauthenticity when this time he is clearly in the wrong and inauthentic.So states the critic.And in one sentences dismisses the entire opus.
“Mr Nardi is back again..”, like a bad penny, the conscience of the king, like the ghost of Hamlet and why is he acting? One s”hould “souligne” his “orginis Italienne, even though he is “Torontois” and Calabrian born. Some thing wont give here with the logic, Boolean or otherwise.
“How can it be otherwise when mine uncle is king…?”states Hamlet,the first modern actor.
It seems that according to Aristotle, the first and greatest mind to have written on the subject of theatre in his “Poetics” that it has something to do with “valor” whatever that is, some clearly lacking in these critics.It also has something to do with “instruction for the mature mind.”
AN UPSTART CROW SPREADS HIS WHITE HARPY WINGS
There seems to be a problem here when according to the critical radical cache that the actor is only playing an exaggeration of himself, when all around actors are just playing themselves. All artists and perhaps all critics like to think of themselves as authentic,sincere, as different, as perhaps even “original”, that often misguided word.Every human ebing wishes to be admired, even loved, actors in particular.
Exaggeration and inauthenticity are headnumbing accusations and used as a label,carry and bear the brunt of a strong hard fist to the face. Not a slap which asks for a reply.During the performance we become aware of that invisible fist.An argument breaks out in our collective heads, a barfight.Something is not OK at the OK Coral.
But are these critical responses perhaps not an accurate portrayal of the “Critic” at his very finest inauthentic and exaggerated self? For the actor stands in front of the polished and untarnished mirror of a psychic X ray machine casting out demons and reveals ourselves to ourselves. Projects the hidden shadow, our sick “anima” as Dr Jung wrote and he holds it up to our awful, distorted and meaningless nature.Its no small wonder the Critic, doesn’t appreciate the message.
“NON VOGLIO PETTIGOLEZZE” Suicide note left by Italian Author Cesare Pavese (I want nothing to do with the mundane..with trifles..)
Picasso said it best when he told us “the truth is a lie…”
SECONDA PARTES DOG/DOS
ZOOM !ZOOM!
Car commercial
It says it all, speed, strength, fun! Two words from the mouth of a young boy watching a car speed by staring into Cameria. Ride the car, buy the car, be the car.
But then, what if one wishes otherwise? What if in fact one wants to be a human being and not a car?
“If you are an actor, cease immediately, all your INTENSITY and inspiration will be for naught. However the highest ASPIRATION of Mankind, is to ACT!”
Odd.
The Georgian Mystic Gurdjeiff,as reported by Ouspenski, the scientist/seeker.
In other words it is perhaps better to be the film-stock, rather than the film, the harddrive rather than the software. The Canadian critic does what most Canadian critics have always done best, they attack the man and not the argument.
In order to be an ad hominem Canadian critic, it seems, and write for the national papers,it is necessary, it seems, to have the following characteristics,
1. Hate or at the least be embarrassed by the homegrown theatre (why aren’t you on the sports desk?)
2. Hate or be embarrassed by Canadian Actors.(Unless recognized elsewhere, especially by Britain or the U.S.A.)
3. Have minimal experience or knowledge of either theatre or actors.(But pretend otherwise)
4. Love anything “other”, like sports, politics or financial news. (But present oneself as a man of culture and erudition)
5. Hate anything in time present and consider it inferior to another other, any other, and any other time and place, but certainly inferior to any past found elsewhere.(But pretend otherwise)
6. Know more about the art of acting than any actor out there.(And know that that knowledge is certain as the law of gravity)
7. Be conscious of the all elements of the above, and be above that.
8. And…
9. Forget all of the above
In order to be an actor of Mr Nardi’s caliber it is necessary to have the following responsive characteristics;
1.Be able to accept vitriol and caustically stupid barbs from ignorant men who get paid to be ignorant and caustically stupid.(And smile)
2.Not be paid for working diligently, suffering diligently,working diligently, and having a great deal of natural and God given talent and applying it with great effort and a great deal of blood sweat and tears.(And be grateful)
3 Accept mud-slinging as a way of life and be accused of slinging mud by the mud slingers. (And pretend not to know that)
4.Love the theatre,acting, people, history, knowledge, beauty and truth and strive towards these things knowing fully that the only thing that matters to the critic is money, power, prestige,delusional lies, and the sports desk.(And ignore it, in order to survive)
5.know more about the art of acting than any critic and also know that this knowledge is considered by the Critic to be in turn delusional and the actor, who after all is merely an actor must pretend otherwise relegating such knowledge to the director, the critic and elsewhere and still get on with the show.(But forget it)
6.Be conscious of all these elements and still get in front of an audience and “emote”with the full knowledge that this emoting will in all probability create enemies and most of the time just be a target for mud and slings and arrows.(And deny it)
7. Be expected to smile politely when the mudslinging stops and clean ones face with vinegar and walk away,like a good gibe.(And get drunk)
8Forget all of the above.(And get drunk)
Such is “a life in the theatre” in Canada, Anno Domini present day.Given that this kind of knowledge, would in any other line of work be considered a debit why would anyone, let alone Mr Nardi write, produce, star, and use up his savings to stage and film along with his producer? Make neither sense nor dollars and cents.Yet Mr Nardi is stone cold sober.
Is he, in the words of author publisher Antonio D’alfonso “Gambling With Failure?” Why does failure even enter into the equation? Since when is the strive and drive towards any artform a form of failure? Are Canadian theatre artists set up for failure?Are Canadian artists doomed?
Here is what Mr Nardi writes about in his analysis of the NTS the National Theatre School of Canada and its approach to the education of actors in Canada;
“It’s difficult in a climate and theatre community of largely half-hearted group hugs and the perennial obsession with the celebration of hurt feelings to exercise critical thinking.”
ON THE NATURE OF CRITICAL THINKING AND THE CELEBRATION OF HURT FEELINGS
There is an ancient syllogism in the realm of logic which states that if all actors are liars then it follows that if Mr Nardi is an actor then by definition Mr Nardi is a liar. But what if Mr Nardi is not a liar?What if he is not an actor.
Something clearly does not gibe here.Why would Mr Nardi who has won the Canadian Oscar twice, the Canadian Emmy and the Canadian Tony many times do this kind of thing?If Robert DeNiro had won two Oscars, two Tony’s and 3 Emmys and then written “3 letters” and performed it Off Broadway and been accused of ranting and being disgruntled and been referred to as mediocre and inauthentic, his not theirs, there might occur an armed uprising among the creative communities of New York, Hollywood America and the United Nations.Perhaps even Paris.There would be outrage. And probably a bullet or two. What if in fact Mr Nardi is telling the truth? What then? Mr Nardi is clearly not an actor and therefore must be playing an “exaggeration of himself..” So states the Critic.
Then why has he received the Best Actor award not once, but twice? Someone else must be doing the acting, an invisible influence as it were, pulling the strings by a sleigh of hand.In Canada the hidden assumption is that it is the director not the actor who wins the acting award.The actor is merely a puppet, a pagliaccio. What happens if the “actor” were to cut the strings?
In Canada there is a Hockey-like, quick kick to the stomach followed by a resounding indifference, above all from the creative community, and from the actors themselves. The Quebecois critic states that his crime is that he is from Toronto which makes perfectly insane Boolean sense, even though he is from Montreal ,while the English papers accuse him of ranting and being Calabrian born.The argument is sealed before it is opened. A perfect storm of stupidities, in which nothing is revealed other than what in fact is being revealed.Nothing.The truth is a lie, and valor in the arts is for harpies with large beating white wings.And valor is for donkeys.
But Mr Nardi in “3 letters” has accomplished the impossible, he has written Hamlet’s “The Mousetrap.” And he has trapped “the conscience of the King.”
Well done Signor Nardi! Che cazzo!
“Let us go then, you and I…”
T.S. Eliot
In the recent past, Artists and Jews, Gypsies, Actors, writers, painters, photographers, composers, musicians, were sent to the trenches, to the concentration camps, to the Gulag and to prison.
But Paradise Lost and Found and Lost again, was built in America and Canada. Immigration throughout the world had hurled the “emigrant” into an exponential arc, whose centre was nowhere, and its circumference- everywhere- and with it the entire art and culture of a nation.. The human condition of Dislocation has become the norm and not the exception in our time.Hence all men are now actors, performing for the “other.”
Calabrians, like Mr. Nardi were forced to move by dire necessity to all parts of the world. Concepts of exile, dislocation, elimination, separation non-inclusion alien-nation-ation, isolation, have been internalized, then denied existence.Their children paid the price.
In “3 letters” Mr Nardi chatters, talks, shrieks, and laughs about it. He does what the “commedia del’arte” actors have always done, make us laugh and cry about the hidden secrets of the societal lie, and he tries to wake us up. But he doesn’t tell us that is what he is doing. He remains mum.
Language and theatre have been forgotten and denied and buried. Forced into exile. Language is a lie. The theatre of cruelty and the poor theatre Mr. Artaud and Mr. Grotowski spoke of becomes the only sane response. Obfuscated and metaphysical theatre, a theatre invisible to itself. If language has been co-opted by tyranny, as Mr. Stuart Chase points out in his book “The Tyranny of Words”, then by co-opting tyranny Mr. Nardi is on the right path. He is pointing the way out, the exit.
In the Soviet Union and else where Artists were sent to Siberia, to prison, or else beaten and tortured. In America where they drank themselves to death or died with a needle in their arm, there was no need to shut them up. “Beetroot” Brecht left Santa Monica for East Germany.He’d had enough.He was freer on the other side of the Iron Curtain. He preferred it and founded the world-renouned Berliner Ensemble.. In the meantime Canada did what it has always done best- exile its raw resources and talent and crush the rest. Will the “3 letters” travel? Where is there to travel to? China? The Moon?Roumania? How does the language of “3 letters and counting” compare to the language of politicians and Wall St bankers and burgeoning billionaires? Of Bertolt Brecht or Eugene O’Neil? Of Ionesco and Dario Fo?In what sense is language even language anymore? Where is Canadian theatre and film?
“The Dog Dos Partes Torque vectoring All-Wheel Drive system is something to behold. It’s a model of modern engineering, and it has served Dog-Dos well in the past. So well, in fact, that it’s made Dog-Dos the stuff of legend. Urban legend.
So ends the tale of Dog-Dos, whose sure-footedness made it a legend. Until next time, Farewell.
Car Commercial
The great schism of the true horror that had stuck a knife deep into the belly of the Creative heart of Europe and the world manifested in WW1 when artists were put on the front lines and died like flies or were sucked up and driven mad and ineffectual became manifest many years ago as the Age of Schizophrenia and TV had begun.That was no mere coincidence.
The alienation of the worker from his product and the sweat of his brow led finally total alienation from his sweat and brow.And his body and his mind. Hence the Pataphysicists. Hence Mr. Artauds “Theatre of Cruelty” which would become realer than the real- his insane rants, clear a bell. In the future it all would become Reality TV or morning programming.This is what is being addressed by “3 letters”.And like a rape victim, Mr. Nardi has been given the signal to shut up and not tell anyone.Instead like any true theatre artist he screams his very loud scream on very deaf ears. Or at least ears already plugged with psychic and mental detritus.
Hence, “Il Grido Silenzioso” of Mr. Nardi’s “letters” as a modern day Savonarella, signaling though the flame but inside a muffled and an unheard cry of Tim Horton donuts.
“Tis an attempt, m’Lord, to speak the truth with the full awareness that it is at root all a sham, as language and theatre is a lie and a sham.“
Unwritten “Les Cenci”
And like Mr. Artaud, Mr. Nardi is not being heard and is being denied entrance into the bastion of the “furiosos” fairy tale of the Castle Loma Festival of Acceptable Canadiana, for failing to wear appropriate attire, it seems.For not having a tie on and the right school shield.
It is an old story in Canada, and “elsewhere”.
But unlike Jerzy Grotowski, the creator of the Polish Lab Theatre in the 60’s during the Age of the Iron Curtain, who revolutionized the very concept of theatre and returned it to its metaphysical pre-verbal origin, to essence, to audience-actor, Tony Nardi has no space, no theatre, no character to play and no, no Peter Brooke in England, or Richard Schechner in New York to pick up the slack thin threads, unveil the baton and trumpet the movement onto the international stage. He cannot eliminate the corpo-mentalistic lie. But he succeeds nonetheless.
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.
French Canadian Critic
Uh huh. Nardi est un vrai Torontois. Zut Alors!
He is after all a true Canadian and quadri-lingual, where, it now seems there can be no anarchic revolution of thought and spirit.So why is he Italian anyway? He is born of Calabrian parents, born in Calabria, migrates and is raised and educated in Montreal and is now it seems after all, a Torontonian, minus the hagus.His is the stuff of legend and it has served him well. He is after all, from Toronto the critic states, anathema to the Quebecois. He was born in Italy but was raised in Montreal and escaped to Toronto, therefore he is to be reviled not for being Calabrian-born but a Torontonian, by choice.He is to be therefore reviled for being from Toronto even though he is from Montreal. He is after all “un vrai Torontois.” Though “latin”, There is nothing of British phlegm in him. So the centre of the criticism in this case is that Mr Nardi, who is Calabrian born is from Toronto, even though he is from Montreal. And “latin.” And that his Calabrian “colere gronde au rythme du tambour battant.”
I see.
Anathema to all,and central to everyone is the idea that being who he is, is what the probleme is and that there to isolate and alienate, divide and divide again is quite ok, in the same way that its ok, in the game of hockey to stick someone. And conquer. Conquer by labeling.And therefore? But Mr Nardi is not “latin”, if anything he is a Sabine, or a “Brutium.”Its all very confusing, is it not? And it creates a great deal of phlegm to be washed down by a great deal of Brad’or.
And tambourine dancing.
So what is there after all to rebel against? Not a damn thing in Canada. Everything in the theatre here it seems is perfect, if indeed the theatre were a beaurocratic- to- be filled- out application form, it would be spotless cheese and cherry cloth. What is there to reveal if the central cry of the immigrant masses is gratitude for the life and job they possess.Why do we need artists of any kind?Especially a Calabrian-born Tony Nardi.
You’ll get used to it, the Critic states. Just don’t bother to write,or paint or act it out.Just shut up. And if you do any of the above, you must be, from Californi-ay and not a Calabrian. Or a Serb.
“Lets face it Mssr Nardi, you people(you Italians) make good shoes, do you not?”
Spoken to a Calabrian-born Filmaker by an Ottawa Government Cultural Film Official.
“You played Rockefeller Centre? Where is that?”
Spoken to a Canadian born Composer Musician by another Official Official.
As in Plato’s ideal “Republic” there is no need for art, only the lyre, the harp, the electric saw and the Children’s Theatre. For anyone to suggest otherwise is to invite scorn or at the very least confusion. Art is suspect, in Canada, especially since as everyone knows the artist feeds at the public trough. The artists of Canada are painted and treated with pity and contempt and are endured as one might endure a slightly retarded and over-loud relative. Spoiled children, one puts up with them, providing they are relatives.
ANOTHER MESSAGE FROM THE CASTING DIRECTOR
“Comments; Artists should approach their auditions with Standard American English; any speech elements that may identify a character as Canadian should be avoided.”
From A True and Real Canadian Casting Call Breakdown, instructing the “artists.”
The Dog Dos Partes Torque vectoring All-Wheel Drive system is something to behold.It has served the Dog Doc well, a triumph of the engineering of the human spirit.
Zoom zoom.
In spite of the creation in the last 30 years of a plethora of theatres particularly in Toronto and a host of extraordinary playwrights, Carol Bolt, (dead) George Walker, David French (dead) Michael Hollingsworth (unknown and forgotten, before he was remembered) Michel Tremblay (French-Canadian, and therefore ineffectual) Judith Thompson (in the vales of Academia), some of whom are world recognized –the signaling remains below the threshold of a public who still feeds at the Haymarket of American and British imports. And feels therefore less than important, unimportant indeed, certainly not American.Or British. Or French. And certainly no longer worthy of having any “value added.” Unless that import is “recycled” Canadian goods having been given the official stamp of Elsewhere. Odd dilemma.
The so called attempts by Government agencies to create and foist a living breathing theatre, falls upon itself, has failed and continues to fail, and will continue to fail in spite of billions of dollars pumped into the Canadian cultural agenda and 15 percent of the tax dollar earmarked for Canadian Culture. But the official reports will always be positive. In the past 35 years there has emerged no movement, no stellar example, within the communities who has been accepted as a “voice” of the soul of the nation. Let alone a Tony Nardi, who unlike others of powerful talent has not left the nation and emigrated Elsewhere. And Tony Nardi is marginalized as all artists in Canada are marginalized, if they attempt to point out that something clearly is askew with the Canadian Cultural Package. And that it is a dilemma and needs to be addressed. But by whom? Canadian artists? Officials? The Canadian People? Washington? Facebook?
Nor has there ever emerged an O’Neil, a Tennessee Williams, an Albee, a Brecht, Stoppard, Pinter, not even a Mamet-and not for lack of trying or essential talent-nor it seems anything approaching a Brando, a Mastroianni, a De Neuve and certainly no Dean, no Clift, no Magnani- but instead a perfect corporatist collection of Hollywood successes like Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, Bill Shatners, and brilliant imitators and comedians. Which is to not say that these “talents” have not emerged within the confines of the nation. But where are they?
In Canada the commercial is king. And to capture its “conscience” is to become a Hamlet and to be subjected to a venomous poignard. And an outpouring of critical askance and spittle.
The presented argument that Canada is a small nation would hold water were it not for the fact that Canada has produced a plethora of successful artists recognized elsewhere, never at home. As exports. First to Europe, primarily England and France, now the U.S.A. What’s wrong with this picture? “3 letters” addresses this issue and does it with skill, verve, humor, intelligence, and theatricality. Why hasn’t that been noticed and addressed by the critics? Why instead is there an attack and an assault on the artist for daring to speak the truth? This is not of the imagination, this is photo-realism. And this is the sad and comic dilemma addressed to the imaginary “Sarah” within the letters. Why then is Mr. Nardi an “imitation of himself?” And who shall imitate the imaginary and not so imaginary Sarah, the Celtic/Jewish princess whose heart aches and longs for her song to emerge. What does that mean? It’s an absurd and malevolent statement of the part of the Critic.
Where then are the voices of the nation when the voices are suffocated before they speak?
When Mr. Nardi points out that some of the great actors of the post communist Central European group immigrated to Canada and disappeared into the world of menial labor, never to work in the theatre again, with some rare exceptions-again, there is no response, just quiet resigned indifference. Do Canadians care about their artists? What is a “collector lane?”Whats wrong with Mr.Nardi’s central metaphor of living burial? Is death an exaggeration of itself?
Grotowski who created his “meta-theatre” in the 60’s did so in order to avoid going to prison for speaking the truth of the Communist lie. He knew enough to know that his “poor theatre” would have to be reduced to motion and sound and written in a language that would avoid the threat and tread of the Soviet tank. He chose an encrypted language of signs, sounds, and movement. It would be incomprehensible, a secret signaling though the flames. He could not have imagined however a threat so great to the creative soul that it would operate in vitro, before conception, a kind of spiritual prophylactic that could prevent insemination or abort it. Even Communism could not accomplish that.
Grotowski succeeded however, for political reasons, both inside and outside of Communist controlled Poland to transmit essential and powerful truths. But then, Mr. Grotowski had something against which he could fight and he created his theatre in the midst of a narrow window of liberated thinking- world –wide, the petite Renaissance of the 60’s. In America this, soon to be shut down not by resistance, but by fashionable acceptance and absorption. By fashion and hip attitude. It would be eaten and digested. Not by the Politburo but by Madison Ave and Wall and Bay St.
Art in North America becomes Fashion, Vogue, Attitude, Twitter and Sound Bite and Commercial, or it exists not at all. It becomes Paris Hilton and Madonna and Britney Spears. The artist is not repressed he is absorbed and drowned in both fame and money or reduced to insignificance. Canada chooses the latter. It marginalizes and dismisses its artists forcing them not into Fashion but into Beaurocracy and form filling. Or into Advertising.
What is not admired and respected at root dies and withers on the vine. This is the issue. There is no dialect here that can hold veracity for too long, before the next phase comes in. Artists like the American Andy Warhol (of Czech origin) knew this in advance and went with the flow. He saw the dollar bill as an object trouve, an art-in-itself. He cut to the chase. In Canada we had artists like Charlie Pachter, painting the Queen riding a moose. Who knew of him? Photographs of the sizzle, not the steak. Paintings of the frame and not the canvas. The medium is the message is a massage. As Marshall McLuen the great Canadian founder of Media Studies pointed out – if the United States is “film”, then Canada is film stock, it is anti-thesis to the American thesis. Was he wrong?
In a free and democratic society it is absurd and shameful and painful to speak it, let alone think it. There can be no language of a non-language, which is yet to manifest. Nothing in effect can manifest. And critics with sharpened knives and poisoned tongues armed with ignorance, contempt, and “attitude” can accomplish what the jails and the beatings and the tortures in the Soviet Union could not, silence any and all original voice. But the real damage is done by a system in which at root defines artistic product as a form of “cultural welfarism” recognizing neither its artistic nor economic value. What would France be without the stolen masterpiece of the Mona Lisa? And what is the economic implication of that one painting? And why did Picasso emigrate there?
There is no divisive cultural politburo because in Canada there is no need to have one. And no revolution can happen because there is nothing to rebel against. And what does not happen through randomity, is eaten up by the Hollywood critters of Fame and Money.
What need of hell when Paradise has never been lost, not ever will it be? The “critic” is right. Why create the “3 letters” unless the author is an exaggeration of himself. No real Canadian (non French speaking of course) has ever been honored and accepted by the elemental Critic of the Nation. And this is the very issue, the nerve of the matter, the core of what Mr. Nardi has brought forth in this “venomous diatribe.” He has looked and peaked under the skirt of the Queen riding a moose hand out stretched in a royal salute. And he has found it fraudulent and inauthentic. He has dared to suggest that perhaps there might be more here than Queens on Moose’s riding to the sunset. Mr. Nardi is not a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police nor a player of Hockey. He is in fact “an artist.”
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22 Apr
partes doc for dogs, a critical essay on the state of theatre
Posted April 22, 2011 by Nick Mancuso in General thoughts and comments. Comments Off
SECONDA PARTE
A Continuation in the Study of Calabrian-born actor, Tony Nardi’s “3 letters”, commedia del arte deluxe, in the context of the Canadian Critical Mindset Distress Disorder.(CCMDD)
DOS DOGS PARTES SUM IN-BETWEEN-THE-CRACKS-BARK-THE-DOCS
“The second thing to aim at is propriety. There is a type of manly valour..” Aristotle (the Greeks called it Arete, there is none of it now)
In the 1920’s the great theoretician of the Theatre of Cruelty, the French actor Antonin Artaud railed against the deadly theatre of the bourgeoisie of France, in a Age of real, coming, unpretended terrors, a cunning time that would soon call forth the atrocities of Nazism and Stalinism, to bear witness to something no civilization could have ever imagined;the concentration camp, the Gulag and virulent Corporatism.
In his book “The Theatre and its Double”, he wrote about the actor “signaling through the flames.” Mr. Artaud died penniless in a madhouse. The horrors were yet to come and the flames he spoke of became all too real, all too virulent, as the Century of Horror and War, of Dresden and Hiroshima began. Mr. Artaud’s theatre of cruelty and silent scream was not to be heard. His determination to shatter the falsehood of reality went unseen and unheard. His desire to conquer the tyranny of meaning and language, forgotten and ignored. Reality usurped it.
Surrealism and Futurism were replaced by The 3 Stooges, Hitler and Bugs Bunny, Stalingrad and Auswitzch. The “real” had drowned it all out. The “surreal” and the unimaginable had come all too real. All too imaginable. The surreal had become the real.
The invention of the technology of TV alone proved that. Internet and Cyber-space proves it to the nth degree everyday. Human proportions are no longer valid, reliable or important. The “actor” has been eclipsed.He has become in effect an “action doll” or as the Italian director of emptiness in the midst of meaning, Antonioni called him a“moveable space.”.But even “moveable space” is preferable to the reality of Reality TV and corporatist filmmaking and the current state of the Canadian theatre.
There is no need for theatre, not anymore. There is no need for Aristotelian valour, manly or otherwise. What is Bunel and Alfred Jarry compared to Facebook? What is cruelty? What is the “3 letters?”Why would Aristotle even bring it up? All actors are Johnny Fontanes.
And yet,this is the context for the delivery of Mr Nardi’s 3 letters. This is the new reality of an unreal world.And Mr Nardi has delivered it with great force, using only the Actors tools,signaling though the flames with the voice and the body.Mr Nardi is not Johhny Fontane, and the critics have a huge problem with that. If all actors are Johhny Fontanes and Mr Nardi is an actor, then Mr Nardi is a Johhny Fontance. But if he is not then what is he?
What does it matter if Facebook is the new theatre; the theatre of our Age?A man walking a lobster, on the street, means nothing.We now have lizards dressed as bankers and insurance brokers.The hidden measure of success is money and only money and everyone is now an actor for 15 minutes. Facebook is the new Cineplex Odeon. And pornography. The social currency is an extension of voyeuristic free enterprise based upon one’s societal stock and stack shored up by tons of currency.This is the only standard.This is the neo-cenosure,the gold standard,which is no longer a standard. But then neither is the American Buck. What is it then? Is it horror? Terror? Torture? Censorship? Prisons? Being a winner now means that you can say “duh, duh” countless times and not be gagged or even masked.What is the thermometer of complaint, the sonar scan of feeling, the magnetoscope of correct, manly action- i.e. valor as it was once referred to? What is the “3 letters?”
In this world everyone is now an actor,in the same manner that everyone is now a stockbroker and derivatives trader, and rockstar and fashion model and newscaster.Its all interchangeabl bleeps bops and scans with endless clip , and means nothing.The medium is the message. And the message is clear.Crtics are undertakers, bad ones.
Facebook and Lavalife,Youtube and Cyberspace have usurped human proportion and consciousness, Matrix-like.This then is the new creative currency of our times in an Age of Hiltoniana, an age of Trump, a “bushed” age. A slick and sickened age filled with Babel&Detritus Inc.The theatre has become a limited liability. The sheer level of idiocy on the part of the critical response proves it.In 1983, actor/director Andre Gregory announced it in his film “My Dinner with Andre”.In 2010 Tony Nardi rescuscitated the Artaudian corpse, asking the question; Why does it refuse to die? Why did it and why hasn’t it been buried?
“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”
Why underline his orgins period? So why is Mr. Nardi doing staring into a MacPro and talking? Why bother? The Critics on one side, Dogg the Bounty Hunter and Celebrity Rehap on the other. A million bugs bunny “actors.” Acting all the time in the age of 24/7. Why is there in fact any theatre anymore?Telecommunication and CyberSpace have, as Marshal McLuen pointed out almost 50 years,transformed the entire audience of the planet into actors. Is there any audience left or has it evaporated into space? Why not become a Roman Orator, like Cicero? An apologist like Socrates? A Dialectician? A lecturer? A madman?A mathematician of words, using derivative thoughts and derivative action? Why create the “3 letters?”
In the Dog/Doc Age, these sorts of arguments present seeming irrelevant questions to irrelevant answers. There can be no relevant actors in irrelevant times.When the audience can no longer bear to hear or see then what is the true nature of the original theatre? What is an actor and what can he “act” other than cops, drugdealers, and mafia lawyer? What is theatre? What is a Tony Nardi?Why speak? Why rant? Why signal? What a piece of work is man! Why speak, Mr.Nardi?
CRITICAL REPORT,DATELINE; NUMBLAND
Tony Nardi is back again, with his Two Letters … And Counting! show, which is more or less a solo rant by a disgruntled actor who tears into the Canadian theatrical establishment with the dual war cries of “Mediocrity!” and “Inauthenticity!”. Theirs, not his, I’m assuming.
Yet Another Canadian Critic
The Critic assumes correctly. We know Mr. Tony Nardi is an actor” he is part of the Canadian Cultural landscape in definitio”. He has written directed produced acted in countless shows both in English in French and Calabrian, including the Quebecois classics “La Deroute, and La Sarrasin. Including his first hit play “Storia Del Immigrante, An Immigrants tale which he played to packed house at 21 in Montreal, so why isn’t he acting?Why is he concerned with the dual cry of mediocrity and inauthenticity when this time he is clearly in the wrong and inauthentic.So states the critic.And in one sentences dismisses the entire opus.
“Mr Nardi is back again..”, like a bad penny, the conscience of the king, like the ghost of Hamlet and why is he acting? One s”hould “souligne” his “orginis Italienne, even though he is “Torontois” and Calabrian born. Some thing wont give here with the logic, Boolean or otherwise.
“How can it be otherwise when mine uncle is king…?”states Hamlet,the first modern actor.
It seems that according to Aristotle, the first and greatest mind to have written on the subject of theatre in his “Poetics” that it has something to do with “valor” whatever that is, some clearly lacking in these critics.It also has something to do with “instruction for the mature mind.”
AN UPSTART CROW SPREADS HIS WHITE HARPY WINGS
There seems to be a problem here when according to the critical radical cache that the actor is only playing an exaggeration of himself, when all around actors are just playing themselves. All artists and perhaps all critics like to think of themselves as authentic,sincere, as different, as perhaps even “original”, that often misguided word.Every human ebing wishes to be admired, even loved, actors in particular.
Exaggeration and inauthenticity are headnumbing accusations and used as a label,carry and bear the brunt of a strong hard fist to the face. Not a slap which asks for a reply.During the performance we become aware of that invisible fist.An argument breaks out in our collective heads, a barfight.Something is not OK at the OK Coral.
But are these critical responses perhaps not an accurate portrayal of the “Critic” at his very finest inauthentic and exaggerated self? For the actor stands in front of the polished and untarnished mirror of a psychic X ray machine casting out demons and reveals ourselves to ourselves. Projects the hidden shadow, our sick “anima” as Dr Jung wrote and he holds it up to our awful, distorted and meaningless nature.Its no small wonder the Critic, doesn’t appreciate the message.
“NON VOGLIO PETTIGOLEZZE” Suicide note left by Italian Author Cesare Pavese (I want nothing to do with the mundane..with trifles..)
Picasso said it best when he told us “the truth is a lie…”
SECONDA PARTES DOG/DOS
ZOOM !ZOOM!
Car commercial
It says it all, speed, strength, fun! Two words from the mouth of a young boy watching a car speed by staring into Cameria. Ride the car, buy the car, be the car.
But then, what if one wishes otherwise? What if in fact one wants to be a human being and not a car?
“If you are an actor, cease immediately, all your INTENSITY and inspiration will be for naught. However the highest ASPIRATION of Mankind, is to ACT!”
Odd.
The Georgian Mystic Gurdjeiff,as reported by Ouspenski, the scientist/seeker.
In other words it is perhaps better to be the film-stock, rather than the film, the harddrive rather than the software. The Canadian critic does what most Canadian critics have always done best, they attack the man and not the argument.
In order to be an ad hominem Canadian critic, it seems, and write for the national papers,it is necessary, it seems, to have the following characteristics,
1. Hate or at the least be embarrassed by the homegrown theatre (why aren’t you on the sports desk?)
2. Hate or be embarrassed by Canadian Actors.(Unless recognized elsewhere, especially by Britain or the U.S.A.)
3. Have minimal experience or knowledge of either theatre or actors.(But pretend otherwise)
4. Love anything “other”, like sports, politics or financial news. (But present oneself as a man of culture and erudition)
5. Hate anything in time present and consider it inferior to another other, any other, and any other time and place, but certainly inferior to any past found elsewhere.(But pretend otherwise)
6. Know more about the art of acting than any actor out there.(And know that that knowledge is certain as the law of gravity)
7. Be conscious of the all elements of the above, and be above that.
8. And…
9. Forget all of the above
In order to be an actor of Mr Nardi’s caliber it is necessary to have the following responsive characteristics;
1.Be able to accept vitriol and caustically stupid barbs from ignorant men who get paid to be ignorant and caustically stupid.(And smile)
2.Not be paid for working diligently, suffering diligently,working diligently, and having a great deal of natural and God given talent and applying it with great effort and a great deal of blood sweat and tears.(And be grateful)
3 Accept mud-slinging as a way of life and be accused of slinging mud by the mud slingers. (And pretend not to know that)
4.Love the theatre,acting, people, history, knowledge, beauty and truth and strive towards these things knowing fully that the only thing that matters to the critic is money, power, prestige,delusional lies, and the sports desk.(And ignore it, in order to survive)
5.know more about the art of acting than any critic and also know that this knowledge is considered by the Critic to be in turn delusional and the actor, who after all is merely an actor must pretend otherwise relegating such knowledge to the director, the critic and elsewhere and still get on with the show.(But forget it)
6.Be conscious of all these elements and still get in front of an audience and “emote”with the full knowledge that this emoting will in all probability create enemies and most of the time just be a target for mud and slings and arrows.(And deny it)
7. Be expected to smile politely when the mudslinging stops and clean ones face with vinegar and walk away,like a good gibe.(And get drunk)
8Forget all of the above.(And get drunk)
Such is “a life in the theatre” in Canada, Anno Domini present day.Given that this kind of knowledge, would in any other line of work be considered a debit why would anyone, let alone Mr Nardi write, produce, star, and use up his savings to stage and film along with his producer? Make neither sense nor dollars and cents.Yet Mr Nardi is stone cold sober.
Is he, in the words of author publisher Antonio D’alfonso “Gambling With Failure?” Why does failure even enter into the equation? Since when is the strive and drive towards any artform a form of failure? Are Canadian theatre artists set up for failure?Are Canadian artists doomed?
Here is what Mr Nardi writes about in his analysis of the NTS the National Theatre School of Canada and its approach to the education of actors in Canada;
“It’s difficult in a climate and theatre community of largely half-hearted group hugs and the perennial obsession with the celebration of hurt feelings to exercise critical thinking.”
ON THE NATURE OF CRITICAL THINKING AND THE CELEBRATION OF HURT FEELINGS
There is an ancient syllogism in the realm of logic which states that if all actors are liars then it follows that if Mr Nardi is an actor then by definition Mr Nardi is a liar. But what if Mr Nardi is not a liar?What if he is not an actor.
Something clearly does not gibe here.Why would Mr Nardi who has won the Canadian Oscar twice, the Canadian Emmy and the Canadian Tony many times do this kind of thing?If Robert DeNiro had won two Oscars, two Tony’s and 3 Emmys and then written “3 letters” and performed it Off Broadway and been accused of ranting and being disgruntled and been referred to as mediocre and inauthentic, his not theirs, there might occur an armed uprising among the creative communities of New York, Hollywood America and the United Nations.Perhaps even Paris.There would be outrage. And probably a bullet or two. What if in fact Mr Nardi is telling the truth? What then? Mr Nardi is clearly not an actor and therefore must be playing an “exaggeration of himself..” So states the Critic.
Then why has he received the Best Actor award not once, but twice? Someone else must be doing the acting, an invisible influence as it were, pulling the strings by a sleigh of hand.In Canada the hidden assumption is that it is the director not the actor who wins the acting award.The actor is merely a puppet, a pagliaccio. What happens if the “actor” were to cut the strings?
In Canada there is a Hockey-like, quick kick to the stomach followed by a resounding indifference, above all from the creative community, and from the actors themselves. The Quebecois critic states that his crime is that he is from Toronto which makes perfectly insane Boolean sense, even though he is from Montreal ,while the English papers accuse him of ranting and being Calabrian born.The argument is sealed before it is opened. A perfect storm of stupidities, in which nothing is revealed other than what in fact is being revealed.Nothing.The truth is a lie, and valor in the arts is for harpies with large beating white wings.And valor is for donkeys.
But Mr Nardi in “3 letters” has accomplished the impossible, he has written Hamlet’s “The Mousetrap.” And he has trapped “the conscience of the King.”
Well done Signor Nardi! Che cazzo!
“Let us go then, you and I…”
T.S. Eliot
In the recent past, Artists and Jews, Gypsies, Actors, writers, painters, photographers, composers, musicians, were sent to the trenches, to the concentration camps, to the Gulag and to prison.
But Paradise Lost and Found and Lost again, was built in America and Canada. Immigration throughout the world had hurled the “emigrant” into an exponential arc, whose centre was nowhere, and its circumference- everywhere- and with it the entire art and culture of a nation.. The human condition of Dislocation has become the norm and not the exception in our time.Hence all men are now actors, performing for the “other.”
Calabrians, like Mr. Nardi were forced to move by dire necessity to all parts of the world. Concepts of exile, dislocation, elimination, separation non-inclusion alien-nation-ation, isolation, have been internalized, then denied existence.Their children paid the price.
In “3 letters” Mr Nardi chatters, talks, shrieks, and laughs about it. He does what the “commedia del’arte” actors have always done, make us laugh and cry about the hidden secrets of the societal lie, and he tries to wake us up. But he doesn’t tell us that is what he is doing. He remains mum.
Language and theatre have been forgotten and denied and buried. Forced into exile. Language is a lie. The theatre of cruelty and the poor theatre Mr. Artaud and Mr. Grotowski spoke of becomes the only sane response. Obfuscated and metaphysical theatre, a theatre invisible to itself. If language has been co-opted by tyranny, as Mr. Stuart Chase points out in his book “The Tyranny of Words”, then by co-opting tyranny Mr. Nardi is on the right path. He is pointing the way out, the exit.
In the Soviet Union and else where Artists were sent to Siberia, to prison, or else beaten and tortured. In America where they drank themselves to death or died with a needle in their arm, there was no need to shut them up. “Beetroot” Brecht left Santa Monica for East Germany.He’d had enough.He was freer on the other side of the Iron Curtain. He preferred it and founded the world-renouned Berliner Ensemble.. In the meantime Canada did what it has always done best- exile its raw resources and talent and crush the rest. Will the “3 letters” travel? Where is there to travel to? China? The Moon?Roumania? How does the language of “3 letters and counting” compare to the language of politicians and Wall St bankers and burgeoning billionaires? Of Bertolt Brecht or Eugene O’Neil? Of Ionesco and Dario Fo?In what sense is language even language anymore? Where is Canadian theatre and film?
“The Dog Dos Partes Torque vectoring All-Wheel Drive system is something to behold. It’s a model of modern engineering, and it has served Dog-Dos well in the past. So well, in fact, that it’s made Dog-Dos the stuff of legend. Urban legend.
So ends the tale of Dog-Dos, whose sure-footedness made it a legend. Until next time, Farewell.
Car Commercial
The great schism of the true horror that had stuck a knife deep into the belly of the Creative heart of Europe and the world manifested in WW1 when artists were put on the front lines and died like flies or were sucked up and driven mad and ineffectual became manifest many years ago as the Age of Schizophrenia and TV had begun.That was no mere coincidence.
The alienation of the worker from his product and the sweat of his brow led finally total alienation from his sweat and brow.And his body and his mind. Hence the Pataphysicists. Hence Mr. Artauds “Theatre of Cruelty” which would become realer than the real- his insane rants, clear a bell. In the future it all would become Reality TV or morning programming.This is what is being addressed by “3 letters”.And like a rape victim, Mr. Nardi has been given the signal to shut up and not tell anyone.Instead like any true theatre artist he screams his very loud scream on very deaf ears. Or at least ears already plugged with psychic and mental detritus.
Hence, “Il Grido Silenzioso” of Mr. Nardi’s “letters” as a modern day Savonarella, signaling though the flame but inside a muffled and an unheard cry of Tim Horton donuts.
“Tis an attempt, m’Lord, to speak the truth with the full awareness that it is at root all a sham, as language and theatre is a lie and a sham.“
Unwritten “Les Cenci”
And like Mr. Artaud, Mr. Nardi is not being heard and is being denied entrance into the bastion of the “furiosos” fairy tale of the Castle Loma Festival of Acceptable Canadiana, for failing to wear appropriate attire, it seems.For not having a tie on and the right school shield.
It is an old story in Canada, and “elsewhere”.
But unlike Jerzy Grotowski, the creator of the Polish Lab Theatre in the 60’s during the Age of the Iron Curtain, who revolutionized the very concept of theatre and returned it to its metaphysical pre-verbal origin, to essence, to audience-actor, Tony Nardi has no space, no theatre, no character to play and no, no Peter Brooke in England, or Richard Schechner in New York to pick up the slack thin threads, unveil the baton and trumpet the movement onto the international stage. He cannot eliminate the corpo-mentalistic lie. But he succeeds nonetheless.
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.
French Canadian Critic
Uh huh. Nardi est un vrai Torontois. Zut Alors!
He is after all a true Canadian and quadri-lingual, where, it now seems there can be no anarchic revolution of thought and spirit.So why is he Italian anyway? He is born of Calabrian parents, born in Calabria, migrates and is raised and educated in Montreal and is now it seems after all, a Torontonian, minus the hagus.His is the stuff of legend and it has served him well. He is after all, from Toronto the critic states, anathema to the Quebecois. He was born in Italy but was raised in Montreal and escaped to Toronto, therefore he is to be reviled not for being Calabrian-born but a Torontonian, by choice.He is to be therefore reviled for being from Toronto even though he is from Montreal. He is after all “un vrai Torontois.” Though “latin”, There is nothing of British phlegm in him. So the centre of the criticism in this case is that Mr Nardi, who is Calabrian born is from Toronto, even though he is from Montreal. And “latin.” And that his Calabrian “colere gronde au rythme du tambour battant.”
I see.
Anathema to all,and central to everyone is the idea that being who he is, is what the probleme is and that there to isolate and alienate, divide and divide again is quite ok, in the same way that its ok, in the game of hockey to stick someone. And conquer. Conquer by labeling.And therefore? But Mr Nardi is not “latin”, if anything he is a Sabine, or a “Brutium.”Its all very confusing, is it not? And it creates a great deal of phlegm to be washed down by a great deal of Brad’or.
And tambourine dancing.
So what is there after all to rebel against? Not a damn thing in Canada. Everything in the theatre here it seems is perfect, if indeed the theatre were a beaurocratic- to- be filled- out application form, it would be spotless cheese and cherry cloth. What is there to reveal if the central cry of the immigrant masses is gratitude for the life and job they possess.Why do we need artists of any kind?Especially a Calabrian-born Tony Nardi.
You’ll get used to it, the Critic states. Just don’t bother to write,or paint or act it out.Just shut up. And if you do any of the above, you must be, from Californi-ay and not a Calabrian. Or a Serb.
“Lets face it Mssr Nardi, you people(you Italians) make good shoes, do you not?”
Spoken to a Calabrian-born Filmaker by an Ottawa Government Cultural Film Official.
“You played Rockefeller Centre? Where is that?”
Spoken to a Canadian born Composer Musician by another Official Official.
As in Plato’s ideal “Republic” there is no need for art, only the lyre, the harp, the electric saw and the Children’s Theatre. For anyone to suggest otherwise is to invite scorn or at the very least confusion. Art is suspect, in Canada, especially since as everyone knows the artist feeds at the public trough. The artists of Canada are painted and treated with pity and contempt and are endured as one might endure a slightly retarded and over-loud relative. Spoiled children, one puts up with them, providing they are relatives.
ANOTHER MESSAGE FROM THE CASTING DIRECTOR
“Comments; Artists should approach their auditions with Standard American English; any speech elements that may identify a character as Canadian should be avoided.”
From A True and Real Canadian Casting Call Breakdown, instructing the “artists.”
The Dog Dos Partes Torque vectoring All-Wheel Drive system is something to behold.It has served the Dog Doc well, a triumph of the engineering of the human spirit.
Zoom zoom.
In spite of the creation in the last 30 years of a plethora of theatres particularly in Toronto and a host of extraordinary playwrights, Carol Bolt, (dead) George Walker, David French (dead) Michael Hollingsworth (unknown and forgotten, before he was remembered) Michel Tremblay (French-Canadian, and therefore ineffectual) Judith Thompson (in the vales of Academia), some of whom are world recognized –the signaling remains below the threshold of a public who still feeds at the Haymarket of American and British imports. And feels therefore less than important, unimportant indeed, certainly not American.Or British. Or French. And certainly no longer worthy of having any “value added.” Unless that import is “recycled” Canadian goods having been given the official stamp of Elsewhere. Odd dilemma.
The so called attempts by Government agencies to create and foist a living breathing theatre, falls upon itself, has failed and continues to fail, and will continue to fail in spite of billions of dollars pumped into the Canadian cultural agenda and 15 percent of the tax dollar earmarked for Canadian Culture. But the official reports will always be positive. In the past 35 years there has emerged no movement, no stellar example, within the communities who has been accepted as a “voice” of the soul of the nation. Let alone a Tony Nardi, who unlike others of powerful talent has not left the nation and emigrated Elsewhere. And Tony Nardi is marginalized as all artists in Canada are marginalized, if they attempt to point out that something clearly is askew with the Canadian Cultural Package. And that it is a dilemma and needs to be addressed. But by whom? Canadian artists? Officials? The Canadian People? Washington? Facebook?
Nor has there ever emerged an O’Neil, a Tennessee Williams, an Albee, a Brecht, Stoppard, Pinter, not even a Mamet-and not for lack of trying or essential talent-nor it seems anything approaching a Brando, a Mastroianni, a De Neuve and certainly no Dean, no Clift, no Magnani- but instead a perfect corporatist collection of Hollywood successes like Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, Bill Shatners, and brilliant imitators and comedians. Which is to not say that these “talents” have not emerged within the confines of the nation. But where are they?
In Canada the commercial is king. And to capture its “conscience” is to become a Hamlet and to be subjected to a venomous poignard. And an outpouring of critical askance and spittle.
The presented argument that Canada is a small nation would hold water were it not for the fact that Canada has produced a plethora of successful artists recognized elsewhere, never at home. As exports. First to Europe, primarily England and France, now the U.S.A. What’s wrong with this picture? “3 letters” addresses this issue and does it with skill, verve, humor, intelligence, and theatricality. Why hasn’t that been noticed and addressed by the critics? Why instead is there an attack and an assault on the artist for daring to speak the truth? This is not of the imagination, this is photo-realism. And this is the sad and comic dilemma addressed to the imaginary “Sarah” within the letters. Why then is Mr. Nardi an “imitation of himself?” And who shall imitate the imaginary and not so imaginary Sarah, the Celtic/Jewish princess whose heart aches and longs for her song to emerge. What does that mean? It’s an absurd and malevolent statement of the part of the Critic.
Where then are the voices of the nation when the voices are suffocated before they speak?
When Mr. Nardi points out that some of the great actors of the post communist Central European group immigrated to Canada and disappeared into the world of menial labor, never to work in the theatre again, with some rare exceptions-again, there is no response, just quiet resigned indifference. Do Canadians care about their artists? What is a “collector lane?”Whats wrong with Mr.Nardi’s central metaphor of living burial? Is death an exaggeration of itself?
Grotowski who created his “meta-theatre” in the 60’s did so in order to avoid going to prison for speaking the truth of the Communist lie. He knew enough to know that his “poor theatre” would have to be reduced to motion and sound and written in a language that would avoid the threat and tread of the Soviet tank. He chose an encrypted language of signs, sounds, and movement. It would be incomprehensible, a secret signaling though the flames. He could not have imagined however a threat so great to the creative soul that it would operate in vitro, before conception, a kind of spiritual prophylactic that could prevent insemination or abort it. Even Communism could not accomplish that.
Grotowski succeeded however, for political reasons, both inside and outside of Communist controlled Poland to transmit essential and powerful truths. But then, Mr. Grotowski had something against which he could fight and he created his theatre in the midst of a narrow window of liberated thinking- world –wide, the petite Renaissance of the 60’s. In America this, soon to be shut down not by resistance, but by fashionable acceptance and absorption. By fashion and hip attitude. It would be eaten and digested. Not by the Politburo but by Madison Ave and Wall and Bay St.
Art in North America becomes Fashion, Vogue, Attitude, Twitter and Sound Bite and Commercial, or it exists not at all. It becomes Paris Hilton and Madonna and Britney Spears. The artist is not repressed he is absorbed and drowned in both fame and money or reduced to insignificance. Canada chooses the latter. It marginalizes and dismisses its artists forcing them not into Fashion but into Beaurocracy and form filling. Or into Advertising.
What is not admired and respected at root dies and withers on the vine. This is the issue. There is no dialect here that can hold veracity for too long, before the next phase comes in. Artists like the American Andy Warhol (of Czech origin) knew this in advance and went with the flow. He saw the dollar bill as an object trouve, an art-in-itself. He cut to the chase. In Canada we had artists like Charlie Pachter, painting the Queen riding a moose. Who knew of him? Photographs of the sizzle, not the steak. Paintings of the frame and not the canvas. The medium is the message is a massage. As Marshall McLuen the great Canadian founder of Media Studies pointed out – if the United States is “film”, then Canada is film stock, it is anti-thesis to the American thesis. Was he wrong?
In a free and democratic society it is absurd and shameful and painful to speak it, let alone think it. There can be no language of a non-language, which is yet to manifest. Nothing in effect can manifest. And critics with sharpened knives and poisoned tongues armed with ignorance, contempt, and “attitude” can accomplish what the jails and the beatings and the tortures in the Soviet Union could not, silence any and all original voice. But the real damage is done by a system in which at root defines artistic product as a form of “cultural welfarism” recognizing neither its artistic nor economic value. What would France be without the stolen masterpiece of the Mona Lisa? And what is the economic implication of that one painting? And why did Picasso emigrate there?
There is no divisive cultural politburo because in Canada there is no need to have one. And no revolution can happen because there is nothing to rebel against. And what does not happen through randomity, is eaten up by the Hollywood critters of Fame and Money.
What need of hell when Paradise has never been lost, not ever will it be? The “critic” is right. Why create the “3 letters” unless the author is an exaggeration of himself. No real Canadian (non French speaking of course) has ever been honored and accepted by the elemental Critic of the Nation. And this is the very issue, the nerve of the matter, the core of what Mr. Nardi has brought forth in this “venomous diatribe.” He has looked and peaked under the skirt of the Queen riding a moose hand out stretched in a royal salute. And he has found it fraudulent and inauthentic. He has dared to suggest that perhaps there might be more here than Queens on Moose’s riding to the sunset. Mr. Nardi is not a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police nor a player of Hockey. He is in fact “an artist.”
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