“…And Counting!” (Letter Three)
This is bare bones theatre – no set, no costumes, not one single lighting effect (no lights up at the beginning or lights down at the end), no music – nothing, nothing at all in the way of support. The only thing present is an actor brimming with energy, invention and precision, armed only with his anger, his intelligence, his humour and… his laptop.
The third installment of Tony Nardi’s theatrical letters series is a postmortem of Two Letters: a journey into the present state of theatre, culture and funding. To tell the tale, to recount the loss of direction and the complacency of an artistic milieu ensconced in a society too afraid to silence its artists and too spineless to support them, Tony Nardi demonstrates the pointlessness of theatre and, in keeping with the secular spirit of grand traditions – particularly commedia dell’arte– delights in reminding us that theatre is fundamentally a civic art conveyed through the body and voice of the actor. In his masterly tirade Nardi generates indignation and laughter, invoking Dante and Shakespeare, polemics and passion. Thoughts are given form, the word is made flesh, theatre is born.
WRITTEN AND PERFORMED BY TONY NARDI
REDACTION: PAUL LEFEBVRE
TRADUCTION: NEIL KROETSCH
TONY NARDI (TORONTO)
TONY NARDI
The actor and playwright Tony Nardi was born in Calabria in 1958. His family moved to Canada when he was six, settling in Montreal’s St. Leonard neighbourhood. Highlights of his training were classes at Actor’s Studio in Montreal and one year in Rome (plus several later stays) working with a grand master of commedia dell’arte, Alberto Fortuzzi. The result is an actor with incredible emotional honesty and an expressive body who is always attentive to the present moment, not only the present moment of the tale, but the authentic present of the performance
