WHERE IS THE GUN?

(WHERE IS THE GUN? was initially posted on Facebook, December 8, 2012.                     http://goo.gl/qVMQI )

There’s no shame in admitting that people may be right in their opinion that “nobody gives a shit”.

It would be ridiculous to pretend otherwise, especially when those people constitute an overwhelming majority. The ‘nobody’ is supposedly everybody in that majority, a nonperson in a self-inflicted dystopia, similar to that in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, arguably one of

a handful of definitive novels of the last 100 years, and for good reason.

Given these numbing times it seems equally ridiculous to resurrect the words of Ibsen or Miller, through the character of Dr. Stockmann, but it’s when they're needed most:

``I am in revolt against the age-old lie that the majority is always right! I tell you now that the majority is always wrong . . . Was the majority right when they stood by while Jesus was crucified? Was the majority right when they refused to believe that the earth moved around the sun and let Galileo be driven to his knees like a dog? It takes 50 years for the majority to be right. The majority is never right until it does right.``

Today’s majority fervently believes it is right. Just as it did in Ibsen’s time, in Giordano Bruno’s, Machiavelli’s, Galileo’s, Seneca’s, and Socrates’. But it’s a bigger majority and connected to the world, a portion of it, and to its members more than at any other time in human history. The town hall meeting in An Enemy of The People is now being played out on Facebook.

The majority has found the perfect medication (Facebook) for perfecting the nonperson, and paying for it like never before. How much of this was by design, or simply what happens to humans when worshiping golden calves, will be known long after we’re gone.

As 99-year old author William Krehm said to me (a couple of days ago), essentially repeating what he has said many times before in books and essays: he’s absolutely horrified at the state of the world, at the economic, political and social decline since WWII, and the “shattering waste of valuable human capital that is currently being perpetrated”.

In his 2010 essay, Industries Squandering Society's Human Capital to Revive Their Profits, he stated: “And as for the universities – they should be reminded that the very name of their institution implies interdependence of all science and learning. Not only our history, but the ideas evolved during the Depression of the 1930s that kept banks out of stock market gambling, should be dusted off and introduced to their economic faculties. And the latter in turn must be guaranteed the freedom of speaking their full mind. Refusing to allow them to do so is further destructive handling of society's human capital.”

By the way, Krehm and Orwell were friends and fought side by side in the Spanish Civil War (not many people living today can say the same.)

If Krehm repeats his narrative like a CD on replay it’s because he has witnessed the world first hand and written about it since the 1930s, and people are not listening to a tune that can only stop when people do listen and take action.

When Krehm was shopping for a lawyer qualified to understand the complexity of the Bank of Canada claim, who would dare take the case on and argue it in court, only one name came up. Rocco Galati.

Khrem is a man who does his research.

His reminder to the universities also applies to all those working in theatre, film and television: they are not merely professionals but people sprouting from a seed from a particular soil, a culture, a way of life and thinking.

One sign of our present-day devolution is that we don’t need one policeman (or soldier) for every four citizens pointing a gun to their heads or shooting randomly into an unarmed crowd to silence it as with the bloody Boston massacre of 1770 (that ultimately backfired and triggered the thirteen American colonies to fight for – and secure - their freedom and independence). Boston reacted and changed the course of history.

Today, here, there is no cop or soldier pointing a gun at us, even with the G20 mess in Toronto. The gun is in our hand. And pointed to our own head, as Nick Mancuso reiterated last night after the screening of Letter One.

Today the prisoner is also the jailor. We’re merely perfecting the world Orwell depicted in his novel while convincing ourselves that we’ve successfully averted that fate.

An engraving by a modern-day Paul Revere capturing the decline and death of human capital would not spread the way it did in 1770 and have no effect whatsoever if it did. Facebook is way more powerful and potentially more effective than Postmaster General Benjamin Franklin’s men on horseback speeding up the delivery of mail, cutting it by half, and extending the post office’s organ and tentacles. But in reality Facebook is not as powerful or effective that way, unless you live in “Tunisia”. Here, Facebook is often the gun or medication we keep in our own medicine cabinet.

Nobody should ever be condemned for stating that the Internet is for whining and bitching, and not for organizing or action. But to pretend that the statement does not reflect a political opinion designed to affect a specific political action is not only naïve but reflects a desire to see the human as a quadruped.

Any statement on Facebook is political and an attempt to organize, to inform, to sensitize, to promote, or reflects a call to action of some kind.

Orwell said it best in his book Why I Write: “The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”

For those who believe that Facebook (or Internet) is not strictly for whining and bitching, and I know there are some, please voice your opinion on the Letters ON Facebook.

As much as I appreciate the people who email me in support of Letter One, and value their heartfelt and reasoned opinion, I encourage them to share publicly what they’ve stated privately.

That was the whole point behind the Letters. Open and public debate.

Otherwise you leave Facebook to those who sincerely believe that aspiring to an IQ of an early human form is something to brag about, that possessing a 12-word dictionary is a tool for discussion and debate, and prove it constantly through what they post.

I know there’s always the very real risk of being ridiculed or bullied on Facebook. The social media forum has in many ways become the modern-day coliseum, where people (even in pajamas and at all hours of the day) take great pleasure watching other people take turns playing lion and victim. The fear is legitimate. But silence or whispering (in agreement or even in opposition) doesn’t address the fear, but multiplies it.

As for thugs:

My father used to say that men are endowed with two heads but should operate with the one above the neck and not the one below the belt.

Some men have been endowed with two of the same. And do an excellent job of doing to themselves what only a few mammals with incredible flexibility and skill are capable of.

IN DEFENSE OF ARTHUR PENN’s In Defense of Friction, and the HISTORY OF US: when it’s nothing but duh.

IN DEFENSE OF ARTHUR PENN’s In Defense of Friction, and the HISTORY OF US: when it’s nothing but duh. (posted on Facebook December 4, 2012)

(inspired by Tony Nappo’s Sunday, Dec. 2, 20012 posting: http://www.twisitheatreblog.com/archives/1609)

I don’t know about you, but when an actor with a big heart and talent like Tony Nappo writes, "If you have anything at all to do with theatre in Canada, this is required reading. Two masters in conversation with the wonderful and extremely informed Amanda Campbell" you want to read. You know he wants you to read especially if you have anything at all to do with theatre in Canada. The implied importance and almost urgent appeal can’t be clearer.

When ‘required reading’ gets thrown in there, well, you feel you have an obligation to the craft and all those who practice it. Even to an audience. Those we serve. ‘Required reading’ is a big endorsement.

And so I read. The entire piece. Twice. I didn’t get it. No big deal. Like most Canadian comedy where you give it a chance you would never give a pedophile, and rewind the tape to see where and why you missed the joke. And always do. Why you didn’t laugh. And have to rely on some foreign comic, like George Carlin, to remind you what is funny (and simultaneously true) and that you’re the fucking problem when thinking that something that isn’t funny should be funny just because someone said it was funny.

I still don’t get it. The piece.

More important, I don’t know why Tony Nappo said it was ‘required reading’.

There are MPs sitting in Parliament representing ridings with less people than Nappo’s list of Facebook friends. I can’t imagine an email bulletin from the worst MP to 2400 constituents stating ‘required reading’ without offering an opinion, a morsel, a bone, something to back up WHY it’s required reading, unless of course, it’s self-evident. It wasn’t in this case.

The thing is, when people don’t offer a reason we still look for the “important” in what we’re told is “important”, even if we never locate it.

Coincidentally, Brad Fraser posted a piece by Arthur Penn (http://jamesgrissom.blogspot.ca/2012/12/arthur-penn-in-defense-of-friction.html), and endorsed it with a simple comment: “Theatre. I totally couldn't have said it better myself.”

That’s clear. That’s an opinion.

I saw a connection between Arthur Penn’s piece and the piece posted by Tony Nappo. Much of what is contained in the latter (in my view) inspired the former. That still doesn’t tell me why Nappo thought it was ‘required reading’. And so I asked him a couple of WHYs, WHATs, and HOWs.

We won’t need Canada’s greatest legal or critical minds to analyze and assess the contents of the emails Nappo and I shared on this.

Nappo’s initial answer was essentially what most parents throw at inquisitive children who ask a series of WHYs.

Because. Or it’s no big deal.

It somehow doesn’t strike many parents that children ask WHY only when they DON’T KNOW why.

I'm still a child asking WHY?

I'm still waiting to get started in this thing we call theatre, film, television and acting (on an individual and collective basis). Honestly. That’s not a put-down of WHERE I have been to date but a deep desire to get to where I HAVEN’T been yet, creatively (individually and with others). Probably in keeping with Schopenhauer’s concept of individual will, motivation and desire.

When we stop asking WHY and assume that privilege, history, status, press, and all that crap, is a credit card with no limit, a bulletproof vest, and a right to entitlement that places artists above all criticism and reproach, we’re screwed and may as well open the door to our self-inflicted, custom-made concentration camp.

Apparently making a statement with no opinion or reason as to why one made it endows the statement with a library of reasons, meanings and explanations (accessible, I imagine, through a crystal ball).

WHY is the piece Nappo posted “required reading?” I’d like to know.

HOW does it relate to the reality outside the shit-infested orifice of theatre?

Basic questions. Truly basic.

And should be expected from anyone who works in the theatre, film and television. I would think that even McIvor and Brooks would welcome those questions. It's the minimum. And doing the bare minimum does not constitute having “balls”. Nowhere close.

Not too long ago someone on Facebook unleashed a revolution in Tunisia and toppled a dictator. Some of the words people use on Facebook, especially the young, drive other young people to premature death. So this is a nasty little tool. Useful. But nasty.

But even here, I was corrected. “Tunisia, my ass. This is Toronto. The internet don’t work like that here. It's for whining and bitching, not organizing or action.”

Thank you. Mr. Nappo.

How does the piece he posted fit into that view I wonder?

Predictably, the only reason given for posting the story was “to point people towards a conversation between one of the most successful and accomplished teams in the history the Canadian Theatre which you seem to have so much disgust towards.”

Correction: I have a problem with Nappo posting the piece as ‘required reading’ and not explaining why, even when asked. I don’t think McIvor or Brooks asked him to post it. They were probably just having fun in an interview like a couple of Somerset Maughams sipping tea in some botanical garden (please read the piece and let me know).

I have problem with Nappo apparently agreeing with Arthur Penn and then building his own defensive wall around the meretriciousness of our theatre and theatre artists and highly recommending the content of a piece for no reason other than sharing with his constituents “a conversation between one of the most successful and accomplished teams in the history the Canadian Theatre.”

He has a problem with my taking issue with him, as if I’m perched on some tree waiting to ambush him. His words. (Anyone who spends any time on Facebook will notice I don’t share urine and stool samples on Facebook). When we’re swimming and drowning in that logic even a sunny day or a rainy one will seem like nature (or God) has it in for us.

That I am taking issue with his thinking and not the person didn’t register. And I’m back to the hell that inspired, provoked, the three Letters.

I have a problem with generic compliments, statements and platitudes to carpet bomb a piece, an issue or an artist. (I feel equally uncomfortable when general, no-name compliments are thrown my way. And if Nappo saw Letter Two, which he did, and heard any of it, he probably heard me say that being born Calabrian automatically installs a bullshit detector in one’s being: we naturally distrust more those who compliment than those who face reality or offer a critical view, like Arthur Penn.)

If one can’t explain or reason WHY a piece is "required reading", that, in my view, automatically invalidates the claim that it is required reading.

I’m also supposed to appreciate the bizarre logic that Arthur Penn doesn't see any good in people, actors or artists because his entire piece points out only what's bad with theatre and those in it. Nappo never said this about Penn. But he accused me of that for my criticism of theatre, film and television in the three Letters.

Do we actually think for a minute that the seminal theatre artists and thinkers in human history saw critical debate and critical thinking as putting people down?

Nothing in human history has grown out of forced, constipated harmony. Michelangelo sculpted the David specifically to take issue with the very family that had taken him under its wing and roof since he was a child and fed him and subsidized his art (the Medici). With his art he tried to bring down the Medici dictatorship (the David sculpture representing the desired Republic and Goliath the imposed Medici Dictatorship). Interestingly Penn’s piece is titled: In Defense of Friction.

If our world is actually driven by a "continually dissatisfied will" and our need to "continually seek satisfaction" (as Shopenhauer maintained) should we not ask to what end – for what purpose - and how our work relates to the real world we live in, the one outside theatre and film? That was my question to Tony Nappo about the piece he posted.

If individual motivation and basic desires are at the core of Shopenhauer’s philosophy of the “will”, and if he had problems with Hegel’s concept of the Zeitgeist, is it not worth asking what is the motivation behind every individual working in the theatre, producer writer, director, actor, on stage or off?

Nappo’s brilliant artillery of reactive insults proved once more that theatre’s worst enemies are actors, not writers or directors. (If I had taken a shot at, say, a casting director, I’d be getting a ton of emails of support from all actors, and before I’d have the chance to explain that it’s just a critical view, they’d tap into to their inner, primal nature, and roast the casting director in a second. It’s what happened in 2001. Many jumped on the bandwagon and failed to acknowledge any responsibility. I ended up defending the same casting director I initially took issue with: the acting community’s tribal reaction to my criticism was way worse than anything the casting director had done.)

Bottom line: Tony Nappo sees no point in my effort (meaning the 3 theatrical Letters). No purpose in them whatsoever. That’s fine. It’s his prerogative, as it is mine to take issue with what he posted on Facebook. Apparently the day after seeing the first two Letters he woke up and the world and industry had not changed one iota. So I let him and everyone else down because I didn’t change the world. His words. At the end of the day all I apparently did was bitch about what is wrong with it and left it as it was. His words. Wait. Apparently his coming to the Letters was out of respect. I know. It’s why he posted the piece on McIvor and Brooks. Personally I don’t need that kind of respect. It’s not even the word I’d use. I’d appreciate it if everyone spared me that generosity. I don’t trust it. I’d rather take my chances with people’s opinions. At least they’re organic.

This from a guy who apparently doesn’t give up. So the problem is not the Letters’ content (or that he sees the same problem, does nothing about it and can’t see how he contributes it), but that the Letters, that someone else, did not solve the problem for him.

Where do I start? I thought I addressed that point ad nauseam in the Letters. I can’t blame him for not getting the Letters since he’s correct when he says that it’s never the audience’s fault if it doesn’t “get” something. I wish he would apply the same logic to people telling him they don’t understand the content of the piece he posted or why he posted it.

The Letters are actually my way of saying that I don't see any purpose in his kind of logic, except slow but sure death (of the actor). Many theatre colleagues share his view, by the way, and look for others to solve the problems while they’re having a good night’s sleep and hope to find a royalty check in the mail the next morning (15% for feeling the vibe, wanting to change the world in spirit while lying in bed. BTW: changing the world has not been on my agenda to date.)

People who ask WHY, who want to seriously debate, so that a third party might see a truth emerge from the two debating sides, are constantly told they’re engaging in “bullshit”.

Throwing in the towel is the easy and cynical part, and what comes naturally to most people in the theatre. Yet they claim they’re always open, even if they don’t leave any room for debate and accuse debaters of wanting to be right. Always.

To remain silent on issues, I guess, is a sign of strength, friendship, and collective support. This is Dark Ages shit.

The characters we often play on stage, especially from the classics, truly don't have much time for bullshit or “harmony”. Neither did the writers who wrote and actors who initially played in them. Perhaps as a destination, certainly not as a point of departure.

To genuflect, in my view, for that’s how it reads, is not an act of generosity. It’s irresponsible. Generous is to dare an opinion, regardless of how others interpret or take it. And to welcome critical views.

As for my view of the piece? Other than the fact that I get nausea reading that sophomoric, vomit-infested, meaningless, self-important, up the yin-yang drivel that in my view is the supreme example and the distilled manifestations of celebrating one’s own ego and stroking one’s own private parts publicly and expecting people to applaud the spectacle or go down on the artists’ "creativity"… nothing. Absolutely nothing!

And what do I think about Tony Nappo posting the piece on his Facebook page (which is fine) without making any thoughtful or compelling remark to back his belief that it’s "required reading"?

Nothing. No comment.

It boggles the mind to make it numb.

I don't smell humanity anywhere in that piece. A deflective shield, maybe. I smell self-inducted royalty. And Tony Nappo genuflecting to get a whiff of it. And it doesn’t matter if you have a big heart and talent when you intentionally choose to play a small game. Arthur Penn took issue precisely with people who notwithstanding their heart and talent justified why they were playing a small game. And Penn, in 2006, at 78 years old, knew we’ve only got one life to live. And Penn thought he was old? Now he’s dead.

If you love the country I hate and hate the country I love, for it is one and the same, please read this:

(If you love the country I hate and hate the country I love, for it is one and the same, please read this: by Tony Nardi posted on Facebook on Friday, November 18, 2011 at 2:21am See https://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150400556257866)

 Honour-killing our constitutional rights and constitution is ALSO tribal. And so is our constitution.

                                                               *           *         *

 "MULTICULTURALISM Immigrants should adopt Canadian values to settle here, survey finds" Globe and Mail Nov 16, 2011

 "Adopting Canadian values should be the price of admission" The London Free Press, Nov 18, 2011

 "Culture over cash—Public says adopting Canadian values should be a higher priority for immigrants than achieving financial self-sufficiency: Trudeau Foundation Poll" Canada NewsWireNov 16, 2011

 "Adopting Canadian values should be immigrants’ ticket into country: poll" The National Post Nov 16, 2011

 "Adopting Canadian values should be condition of immigration: Poll" The Calgary Herald, Nov 16, 2011

 "Dalhousie poll finds Canadians think immigrants should assimilate our values" Nov 16, 2011

                                                           *            *           *

It’s hard for people in this country - including many in the arts – to see the kind of racial profiling our national media, government, publicly funded institutions and pollsters engage in daily without even being aware of it. Or maybe they are.

Let’s start with Section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:


- 27. This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.

I don’t have a problem with Section 27, its wording. But I don’t like Multiculturalism. This is not a contradiction. I don’t like Multiculturalism as it is practically interpreted and practiced in this country. And I don’t like the political and social reality in Canada, in short, those forces that sketched out the reasons for the creation of Section 27.

Section 27 excludes the English and the French Canadians. Apparently they are not part of the multicultural makeup of Canada. They are distinguished by their “bicultural”, “founding nations” status. And that’s a problem. (Would anyone ever even think English and French Canadians are not part of a multicultural world?).

Therefore Multiculturalism in Canada and the constitutional dog bone (section 27) that exclude English and French are in fact segregationist: they define two classes of (and for) Canadians: English and French in first class, the others in second.

If everyone in Canada is equal under our constitution and enjoys the same Fundamental Freedoms (Section 2) and Equality Rights (under Section 15) why do we need the extra interpretive ammunition of Section 27? “Bicultural” Canada limits at every turn “multicultural” Canada, Section 27 notwithstanding. More money goes to bicultural Canada than to multicultural Canada, notwithstanding that population wise multicultural Canada constitutes the majority. But the majority receives minority treatment and funds.

Within this reality, the recent articles in the Canadian press (National Post and the Globe and Mail, etc.) reporting on the results of a survey conducted by Environics and commissioned by the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation (with majority, which includes immigrants, apparently wanting new immigrants to adopt Canadian “values” as a precondition to settling here), are very troubling. “A new poll suggests … there’s a solid consensus around the notion that immigrants should accept certain ‘typical Canadian values’ as a precondition for joining Canadian society.”

If Canada is a “multicultural” country, and section 27 of the Charter Of Rights “officially recognizes” multiculturalism as a “Canadian value”, essentially protecting the right to the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians, what exactly does the press (and the polls) mean by “Canadian” values? Which values? Whose values? Clearly the implied answer is ... Canada’s “bicultural” values.

What are those Canadian “bicultural” values ? And why should “gender equality” and “tolerance of others” be defined as “Canadian values”? They are certainly not intrinsic Canadian values of the ‘bicultural’ peoples of Canada; they are Rights for all Canadians protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If these rights had to be included in the Charter it’s because their exclusion (in a so-called multicultural Canada) would have been very problematic and permitted some of “bicultural” Canada’s “traditional” values to thrive and run amok: namely racism, intolerance and gender inequality.

(Native, aboriginal languages are not protected under the constitution as an official language. Only English and French.)

(Canada was not a leader in “gender equality”. The 1930 Edwards vs. Canada - the Persons case - proves it, notwithstanding Dr. Emily Howard Stowe being one of the “first” female doctors to practice in Canada in the late 1800s, also an activist of women’s rights and suffrage. Canada had a female prime minster once, in 1993. Twenty-six other countries had voted for a woman leader before Canada, which includes India, Indira Gandhi first elected Prime Minister in 1966; and Israel, Golda Meir in 1969)

Framing a question in a poll and reporting on its answers may lead readers to make troubling “racially-based” connections that I believe are intentional on the part of the pollsters and press. This is why people like my friend Carol Sinclair can say: “Certainly, they should not drown their daughters for dressing slutty”. They, presumably, refers to immigrants, new arrivals to Canada. I agree with Carol. Do we actually think that Mohammad Shafia drowned his daughters for dressing slutty because he hails from Afghanistan? Should we increase our racial profiling at the borders as a result? Should we change our entire immigration policy? Should we categorically distrust those people who come here from countries and cultures we hardly know? On what basis or precedent? Canada's track record with native, aboriginal peoples? What should we do? Have customs, immigration and citizen officers asks every person who wants to settle here: “Will you promise not to drown your daughter or wife if she dresses slutty, because, as you know, or should know, it’s not one of our Canadian values? So, please answer the question to the best of your knowledge and ability. Have you ever felt the urge, the need to drown your daughter or wife, given where you come from, your culture, religion, traditions, beliefs and all of that? Yes? No?”

I love this racial profiling, I just have a problem with where we draw the line. No father/husband has a right to drown a daughter or wife for dressing slutty, regardless of culture. Our laws do not permit murder, unless its state sanctioned, of course. But that goes without saying.

Did anyone ever ask about the cultural (religious) background of the former Toronto police officer who killed his long-time lover by sealing her in a 60-gallon plastic garbage container in the basement of his home? Did anyone in the press question his cultural tribe, beliefs and traditions once he was convicted for his heinous crime? Or is it possible that his cultural background had nothing to do with the nature and extent of his crime? Were the early settlers from England and France racial-profiled when they came to these shores? Did they adopt ‘traditional” native aboriginal “Canadian” values? No. They actually proceeded to obliterate from the face of the earth and massacred the entire native population on the premise that they were more civilized.

And let’s look at Canadian Air Force colonel Russell Williams. We can also look at Clifford Olson. But Russell Williams will do. He’s more recent. Williams was “a decorated military pilot who had flown Canadian Forces VIP aircraft for Canadian dignitaries” (Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, The governor general, and the prime minister). “On October 21, 2010, Williams was sentenced to two life sentences for first-degree murder, two 10-year sentences for other sexual assaults, two 10-year sentences for forcible confinement and 82 one-year sentences for burglary; all the sentences will be served concurrently at Kingston Penitentiary. The life sentences mean Williams will serve a minimum of 25 years before parole eligibility.”

It’s interesting how Globe and Mail reporter Tim Appleby defines Russell Williams in a book, A New Kind of Monster. Williams is apparently not a psychopath. “He is not even close to being one… Williams was not that kind of murderer at all… had feelings, emotions, attachments of all kinds: he cared about his wife, he cared about the military; he was devoted to his cats, and he also appears to have a moral compass …”

I’m just looking at the facts, and WHY Williams is behind bars. Williams has very “impressive” pedophile tendencies, had child porn on his computer, but agreed to plead guilty to the other crimes and therefore no charges were laid for child porn. Williams stole underwear of girls as young as 9 years old, clocked 82 fetish home invasions and attempted break-ins between Sept. 2007 and November 2009. He broke into 48 different homes in the Belleville-Tweed area and Ottawa. One home was hit 9 separate times. He was an expert in the field. Of the 82 break-and-enters 61 went undetected or were not reported. He dressed in panties and bras he stole. He apparently lay on the beds of his victims and masturbated, even in young girls’ rooms. How many more was he capable of killing? Would he have killed? We’ll never know.

Were Williams’ ancestors racial-profiled when they came to Canada? Why not? Once Williams was convicted, did anyone in the press attempt to make any connection (or suggest one) between the nature and degree of his crime and his cultural (religious) background? Why not? Based on skin colour, religion, and spelling of his name, does Williams’ deviant sex-killing social behaviour and pathology perhaps reflect a general White Anglo Saxon western world immoral murderous tradition and DNA?

Well, let’s look at the history. Judging from the relatively recent history, the historically proven White Anglo Saxon slave-trade industry and crimes against humanity, that Britain and its colonies essentially owned (and set the standard) for the better part of the last few hundred years, it’s a question worth asking. Were I looking at the west from the east I may just ask these questions. If Williams’ last name were Mohammad, you can bet the number of people polled by Environics who supposedly believe, “…immigrants should be more evenly distributed across the country,” would increase tremendously.

Given this reasoning, I wonder why “Canadians” are not demanding that people with Williams as a last name or who belong to Williams’ cultural-tribal-religious ethnic group are not more evenly distributed across the country so they can perhaps adopt and absorb ‘traditional” Canadian values? Unless, of course, what Williams did (the crimes, the pathological behavior) does in fact constitute a ‘traditional’ Canadian value. Or perhaps what Clifford Olson did and Robert Pickton did also qualify as ‘traditional’ Canadian values. They are after all good solid English Canadian names. And let’s throw in Marc Lépine, the 25-year old who massacred fourteen women and four men at the Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. Of course we could look into his background and blame his Algerian father (and DNA) for his horrible crime and not his French-Canadian mother. Their crimes (serial killing) apparently can’t be blamed on their cultural background. But crimes committed by immigrants CAN be inked to who they are culturally, religiously, and racially. But not names like Williams, Olson and Pickton.

Some "traditional" Canadian "values" simply mystify me. The illegal internment and confiscation of property of thousands of Canadians of Ukrainian, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, German background during WWI and WWII qualify as traditional “Canadian” values. For a good long stretch during the 20th century illegal internment of Canadians on home soil was a tradition, a pattern, and a habit, if of course they were “ethnic” Canadians. It continues today. Canadian-Muslims are the present-day enemy aliens of choice. Can you imagine if Mohammad Shafia (father and alleged killer of his three daughters) had once flown with the Queen of Great Britain, Prince Philip and dignitaries all over Canada in a military jet or helicopter? When do you think another Mohammad or Shafia would be allowed to fly with the Queen on a Canadian Air Force jet? Or even allowed to clean her toilet or stables? You want to see what kind of racial profiling would kick in for anyone from Afghanistan or Pakistan wanting to join the Arm Forces? Not officially, of course. Tribalism doesn’t work that way; it exists in spite of the laws and the constitution and sometimes it’s built into them.

So, in the wake of the recent Honour Killing Trial in Kingston it’s suddenly open season on our present immigration laws, and the interpretation of Canadian values, what they are and who should adopt them. Not only are the articles and polls presented within a racially offensive context and doctrine, MULTICULTURALISM, but their timing is conveniently piggybacked on the Honour Killing Trial, attempting to make a connection in the “collective Canadian imagination” between one (albeit horrid) crime and an entire culture and people numbering over one billion and a half.

The constitutional lawyer who recently told me the Crusades never took a break since they first started in the year 1096 is right, yet again.

A new reality for Chara. Unfortunately, deserved. It's on film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jimZ1tSdPY0


The new reality for Chara is one where players of opposing teams will not trust him on the ice or off, and will slowly reconsider his hit on Pacioretty, on account of the simple statement he made: "I had no idea he was on the ice. I had no idea it was him."  

That would normally send shivers up the spine of NHL players who unanimously agree Chara is the biggest and strongest player in the league.  The notion that a player of Chara’s size, strength and talent plays the game with a confessed level of unconsciousness in what is arguably the fastest and potentially deadliest contact sport on the planet would (should) be frightening to everyone in the NHL.

It’s like a driver racing and overtaking someone to his left and not knowing if it’s someone on a bike or a driver in a fast car. As for the stanchion Chara was apparently also not aware of, that’s like racing and overtaking that someone to your left, guiding that someone through an intersection and into a car traveling in a perpendicular direction and then claiming that he didn’t see the red light.  If he can’t see the red light it’s probably because he had his eyes on that someone to his left he was trying to overtake and slam into a car or a pole. If on the other hand he couldn’t tell who that someone to his left was, bike or car, it’s presumably because he had his eyes on the lights.  If he didn’t see both the someone to his left and the lights up ahead, where was he looking and what’s he doing driving a car?

No NHL player will buy this of course, including Chara’s teammates, and it’s why he will eventually lose the players’ trust.

Two great players thus far have publicly stated they don’t buy Chara’s story or logic. Vancouver Canucks captain Henrik Sedin and San Jose Shark Joe Thornton.

“Sedin agreed with Thornton that all players know where stanchions are in rinks and understand the danger of hitting or getting hit in that area. Sedin and Thornton are Hart Trophy winners, two of the best players in the NHL.”

“I'll tell you this: if you say that you don't know where things are around the ice, I think you're not telling the truth,” Sedin said. “You play the game for 20 years, you know it's there.”

Some may say, wait, Thornton and Sedin are great players, and not all players have their talent or vision on the ice.  True. But everyone, including those defending Chara, has also stated that Chara is one of the great players in the NHL, in the “best defenceman” category.  Could one of the best defenceman in the league, some say the best, be that unaware, that unconscious on the ice?

And if that’s the case when he is skating, what about when he's standing still, on the ice, when the play is dead, like just before a faceoff?

That raises the other disturbing bit of info Chara shares in the same breath of his contention that he had no idea it was Pacioretty:

“It was a faceoff and we tried to set up a play. The puck went to the other side and we were racing for the puck,” said Chara. “I had no idea he was on the ice. I had no idea it was him.”

How does a team set up a play from a faceoff in the offensive zone?

Hockey players and coaches and analysts the world over know that come faceoff time everyone on both teams takes careful account of who is on the ice and where, so that when the puck is dropped, depending where it goes, there will be an appropriate response from each attacking or defending player strictly based on having carefully studied everyone’s position on the ice before the puck was dropped.

Perhaps a different story if the play had been going for some time without a whistle, or players were at the end of their shift, light headed and tired.

But this was a play fresh off a faceoff. Ask anyone in the league and they’ll be able to tell you whose line and defensive duo was on for their side and the opposing side. In fact, during a faceoff in the offensive zone the attacking team takes careful stock of who, on the opposing team, may launch a counter attack. The stats and reports are there for everyone, and used by everyone, all the time.

Both Boston and Canadiens know that on the Montreal team Pacioretty has been THE offensive counter-attack threat the last few weeks. Even the Boston coach Claude Julien would have reminded his players to keep an eye on the speedy and crafty Pacioretty at all times, especially during a faceoff in the offensive zone, because he can burn you on the counter attack. And when you are about to take a faceoff in the offensive zone, you know if Pacioretty is on the ice or not.  You keep an eye on him, as Chara did and as the tape shows. You don’t suddenly forget (five seconds later) that he was there, when he did launch the counter attack and you slammed him into the stanchion. Otherwise you can’t possibly be one of the best defeceman in the league.

The basic hockey logic and reality has not been explored or mentioned by analysts and certainly not by the NHL with the lists of questions it put to Chara when making its decision to suspend him or not.

And suddenly, it’s no longer the game we thought we knew and how it’s being studied and played by players and coaches (while it’s being played) and support staff in the rafters and private boxes constantly communicating to the bench.

No, suddenly, the mechanics and game of hockey, its logic, the careful eyes on the game by everyone including players on both teams, on THAT faceoff, went dead for about 5 seconds and came back to life AFTER the hit. That’s what we’re supposed to believe.

Suddenly it’s a game of instincts, total abandon, unconsciousness, and not strategy, it's a fast game, as in too fast, players don’t know who they’re hitting, there’s no taking stock of who’s on the ice during faceoffs, and coaches don’t get stats on which opposing player is hot or cold, and don't even know who is on the ice, and whether or not to place special attention on him, and matching lines is something that never existed, apparently, etc.

Watch the tape, from the faceoff. It was not a fast game at that time. Take note of the view the giant Chara has of the defending Montreal team at the time of the faceoff, and you will see he clearly has Pacioretty in his vision while in the offensive (montreal) zone way before he gets close to him at the blue line and travels with him in the neutral zone - for the interference and the hit.

Chara’s new reality in the NHL will be well deserved, unfortunately. Unfortunate as hell, for him, for hockey, for players, and for hockey fans.

Tony Nardi

But why? Why this hit, this time?

It's what Bruce Arthur of the post asked in his Opinion, National Post · Friday, Mar. 11, 2011

 http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/tipping+point/4420898/story.html

There is a reason why this hit is different.

As a chid, living in Montreal, and having arrived from Italy only a few years before, I watched Bobby Rousseau (my favourite player then) lying on the ice. I believe he had been hit by a puck in the head. He was there for a while. He wore a helmet after that, and then was traded. That stuck with me because the play seemed to have stopped forever. And then helmets slowly began to show up more and more. Mind you there was the death of the player at the hands of a double check by two Golden Seals players in 1968. That changed the culture, as well.

Over the years there were many incidents in hockey. The cheap shot hit by Chelios on Brian Propp 1989 was another one. Propp is down, outish, barely moving, and a balloon of blood under his head widened gradually on the ice surface.

There have been others. To my recollection what they all had in common was where they took place, awful and devastating as they were. They happened on the ice, within the ice surface, but more important, they happened within the boards... within the air space the boards define, even if many players have, over the years, made major contact with the boards and the "glass" partition and some were badly hurt as a result.

Then came Chara's hit.   A different world. A different class of hit.  For the first time we saw a player's head being guided by an opposing player outside the air space defined by the boards and then thrust, at the very last minute, into a vertical support pole that seemed capable of decapitating the player on the spot or the very least kill him on impact. It took me back to the 2010 winter olympics. Simple as that. No hit has ever come close. Even more serious hits with more devastating results were not as violent even when they were. What we have here is Chara taking Pacioretty into a non-man's land area of the rink (air space) where the body, or at least the head and the rest of the body, could be separated on impact or at least give that impression. And then the noise.  The actual hit. That, too was right back to the 2010 Winter Olympics nightmare.

I felt sick. And like Farber writing for sports illustrated, I thought he was dead.

The other thing to remember: two drivers traveling at 80 miles an hour, side by side, are not moving fast at all when looking at each other. They are actually still. Yet for those watching from the side of the road, the cars are going incredibly fast.

It's the same with skaters. Pacioretty and Chara for a good couple of seconds were traveling fast together but still (motionless) together as well. Fast to spectators, but not to the players or even Carey Price, a goalie, whose eyes, in a sense, have to move as fast as the speeding skaters in order to be within the same aerodynamic speed and stillness. That's why to the players on the ice, they could see what you and I couldn't.

That's why  Carey Price stated, "It wasn't fast, it was slow, actually. Chara took two or three strides and then hit him". That tells you how the players see the play on the ice. It's like when we, as spectators, are having a hard time following the puck and suddenly before you know it someone has already slapped it and the opposing goalie saved it. It is simply easier to see the driver traveling next to you when you're going the same speed, than when looking at him fly by while standing at the side of the road.

The other thing I don't get and has only been talked about on the French sports network.... there was an initial interference by Chara, with Pacioretty already having disposed of the puck. Then Chara remains in interference mode, stays with Pacioretti,  then the extra strides are taken and then Chara's left hand guides Pacioretty into the stanchion.  The geography of this hit was actually very long. Two infractions by Chara occurred within seconds: Interference and then an illegal hit, both infractions while Pacioretty did not have possession of the puck.

As Pacioretty's head clears no doubt we will hear more of what Chara may have whispered to Pacioretty or vice versa... and then we'll know if Chara knew or didn't which player he was guiding into the non-man's land boardless airspace and stanchion.

Welcome to the 1920s. What next, McCarthy?

"I'm all for casting Hoffman and Giamatti in Barney's Version. They are brilliant actors and it gaurantees better business but I think it is asanine to nominate them for Genie awards. Major fail. I am also, incidentally, all for any Canadian producer, director, writer or whatever getting nominated for such a movie. They are there to celebrate Canadian achievement in film. Feel free to disagree."
Actor Tony Nappo

Dear Mr. Nappo (so people don't think I'm talking to myself),

The Genies were never meant to celebrate Canadian achievement in film. Since when? They were always meant to celebrate achievement in Canadian film. There’s a big difference.

The first example reflects a protectionist (regressive) practice where only the Canadians who worked on a Canadian film could be celebrated and honoured; in the second, anyone who participates in and contributes to making a Canadian film qualifies, whether they be crew, actors, writers, producers, stuntpeople or gerbils.

If Hoffman and Giamatti are cast in a Canadian film why should only the Canadians who worked on the film be honoured? This is tantamount to the French having soccer player Zidane on their national team in 1998 (who wins for France the world cup) while his Algerian parents were repeatedly denied French papers/status or passports. France is not the only one: a couple of European countries love and welcome the foreign talent to stay over, sleep over, contribute, spend money, etc. but with none of the privileges granted the ‘pure wool’.

Anyone who works in a film affects the quality of the film, artistically,  possibly at the box office and the culture as a whole. So all should qualify when it comes time to celebrate achievement in Canadian film.

By your logic, only Americans in every American produced film, TV or play should be honoured at the Oscars, Emmys and the Tony Awards. Brent Carver should have turned down the Tony.  Drowsy Chaperone had no business being nominated on Broadway for best whatever, cause it wasn’t American.

Listen, if Canadians want to put into practice today what Fascist Italy did in the 1920s, by all means, that’s fine. It’s not, but, there’s little I can do in a climate as reactionary as the one we’re living in now.  But let’s be consistent, for crying out loud. Let’s make sure Canadian actors, writers and directors turn down Oscar nominations for having participated in an American film and that they can only be nominated where and if the Oscars have specific categories for foreign film, foreign actor, foreign writer, and foreign everything. 

The hypocrisy, of course, is that Canadian actors work way more in American made TV movies in Canada than in anything else. On stage Canadian artists are honoured every year, in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal for best acting, best direction and best production for their work in largely foreign plays or musicals.

Years ago a Canadian actor we all know and love turned down a British play produced in Toronto for the singular reason that he purportedly wanted to concentrate strictly on Canadian made plays. Soon after he was cast in a Canadian film that did very well, was subsequently cast in a Hollywood film and then moved to LA, and has never laid eyes on a Canadian play on Canadian soil since then.

A cultural wasteland with the CBC's royal seal of approval (assuming you were watching)

If anyone needs proof that culture in English Canada means nothing more than projecting a triumphant image of culture, of being culturally advanced and relevant, even superior, among first world countries, while gorging on and drowning in sodium-laden, fast food, tabloid culture from south of the border, just look at yesterday’s CBC's The National 3-minute story on the National Theatre School and today’s Toronto Star full page on Charlie Sheen’s meltdown. 

I never said the National Theatre School was undeserving of celebrating it’s 50th anniversary for training actors. The CBC News’ editors with their bureaucratic mindset believe fundamentally that Canada is undeserving of culture given the 3-minute dog bone they dedicated to the National Theatre School story. It’s the news media across the country that deems Canada’s viewing and reading public culturally dumb and unsophisticated.

My CBC (raw) interview was almost an hour long.  The crux of what I said was that the National Theatre School’s 50th should make us question what ALL theatre schools in Canada have done with the training of actors given that almost 90% of our theatrical output and over 98% of our movie screens showcase and project American, British and foreign made plays and films. The problem is not with the American, British and foreign works. The problem is with the dearth of authentic Canadian works by its theatre and film artists reflecting the time and society they live in. That the few homegrown plays, films and TV produced in Canada do not reflect and exclude – for the most part – the multiracial and multicultural population riding our city buses and subways should also be a concern. 

A theatre school, an institution, can’t be a cocooned laboratory disconnected from its society. It can’t be a peace treaty between Canada’s Two Solitudes to heal the wounds of the Plains of Abraham – the premise on which NTS was founded. It can’t profess to prep actors for gladiator stardom south of the border.  Canada is not what it was in the 1950s. Above and beyond supplying and distilling an actors' skills and techniques, a school and its students must reflect – be connected to - the landscape and society they inhabit.  The students – and what they do later in the professional realm – best reflect the quality of the school and culture. It is not for the school to define and shape students' artistic qualities. That’s branding. And should be reserved for cattle not humans. A school should encourage critical thinking in artists, and the skills and toolboxes artists acquire (together with their innate talent) should serve and nourish the creation of culturally relevant works.

Jazz musicians and composers of the ‘20s, ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50’s and ‘60s for the most part did not attend music institutions. Yet they perfected their musical skills and toolbox on the job, reflected their reality through their music, and contributed to humanity the 20th century’s most relevant music with Duke Ellington being the 20th century’s greatest and most prolific composer. In the opinion of many Jazz also predicted the civil rights movement.

Yet here in Canada, we have no problem shutting eyes and ears to reality, promoting facsimile culture, dedicating full page ink to a Hollywood star's personal problems, justifying it as culture, and bragging to the world that we're a world class country when it comes to culture.

Silver, golden and centennial anniversaries in Canada simply project an image of itself out of touch with reality. It was the case with Expo ‘67.  And as always, after the party, reality hits.

see: http://www.cbc.ca/video/#/Shows/The_National/1242568525/ID=1830669048

A Post Script on NTS and Canadian Acting Schools

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. It’s difficult for some to understand that one doesn’t go to theatre (acting) school to acquire talent and that no school can deny or rob one of his/her talent.

I find it difficult to understand that many people actually believe that a moral (and ethical) core and a deep set of principles are bought with either money or fame, or, similarly, through poverty or obscurity, and that conditions and circumstances, personal or communal, great or harsh, create the core as opposed to simply affecting it.  These people are often swept and driven by emotion and blind to logic and reason, and usually (eventually) lead family members, friends, communities or countries to hell.

Fortunately there are people out there who do stick to making clear points, who agree or disagree with an idea or opinion by pointing to specific issues of concern and bones of contention, who elaborate on their point, hopefully with as many facts as they can get their hands on, so that others may also get the chance to agree or take issue with their views, thereby provoking healthy, sober, domino-effect debate. If theatre artists can’t or won’t do it… who should?

I’m thankful for those minds that refrain from projecting and vomiting their own personal frustrations and gripes with the world and their community, those who can spot templates instead of auto-generated imaginary personal attacks, who can make the critical distinction between describing (to the best of their ability) how the world and their community appear to them and lamenting or cheering (ad nausea) how the world and their community serve  - or fail to serve and promote - their own personal needs and dreams.

A lot of the emails sent my way, directly or indirectly, reacting to the first piece I posted yesterday, that others then proceeded to post elsewhere (which I have no problem with), are literally soaked in an emotional incoherent woe-is-me-or-us refrain or spread over a passive-aggressive who-the-fuck-are-you? subtext.   

Basically, and overall, the reactions fall under two clear categories: those who take offense, and those who exercise their own critical thinking and ponder the journalist’s question in whatever way they see fit. 

Yesterday, I suggested I could forward the journalist emails from those people who did not mind sharing their views. Thus far, less than a handful have informed me they have no problem with my doing so.

A couple of NTS alumni responded and did not take offense. Nor did they agree. They simply thanked me for offering food for thought. They knew that the collective ethos I took issue with transcends personal attacks on individuals and/or on NTS. They knew that my piece was not a sweeping comment on the caliber of people attending NTS or on their talent. (I have a number of friends who graduated from NTS, and they're very talented: some have done very well for themselves)

Given that young people admitted to some of the “finest” acting schools possess talent from birth, that we know  a school can never furnish an actor with talent, the question remains: What has the Canadian acting school, including NTS during its 50-year history, fostered in the actor and the community of actors? What has NTS encouraged the Canadian actor to be? 

We know that the French side of NTS stems from a French-Canadian society that considers culture and theatre very important (crucial) to everyday life. We know that, for the most part, generally, French-Canadians do not see theatre or culture as simply a must-do "night out" of the civilized, an entertaining journey through a one-size-fits-all supermarket of international theatre hits, but an important cultural mirror that reflects and challenges the French-Canadian society, a society keenly interested in theatre and in being challenged. For the most part. And some of my French-Canadian artist friends would not be as generous in describing the state of culture and theatre in Québec.

What about NTS’ English side?

Does it reflect and/or instill the same commitment to the process of theatre and the vital (viral) role of the actor within it and society? Does it support a commitment to a theatre that does not play TO an audience but reflects a society’s dreams, nightmares, aspirations, fears, foibles and challenges especially by addressing those issues the audience (society) would rather not deal with and ignore in daily life? Yes or no?

Do the best acting schools in Canada - does NTS  - instill in the actor the energy, commitment, craft and a social/political awareness needed to create works on par with the great relevant theatre of the past, or do they simply teach people how to best mimic the past, bypass the present and to remain silent where voices should sing and howl?

If Ontario's total annual theatre output is comprised mainly of plays from Britain and the USA - to the tune of 85%  - is it possible that this FAT fact and statistic offers an insight into what  English Canada’s acting schools preach, teach, encourage and expect? 

Some actors who chose NOT to attend NTS in the 70s and 80s (and who have done very well for themselves) expressed (in emails) similar sentiments on what The School projected during those years: an English-colonialist-infested pathology. 

The perception might be just that: a perception. But it is too widespread a perception for it to be summarily dismissed by knee-jerking, emotionally-driven, hurt-feelings-wound-licking thespians gorging on Facebook like drunks in a beer hall.

I believe Paul Thompson worked very hard as NTS director to get people away from the school’s colonialist shackles and stranglehold. That's what people tell me, and I have no reason to not believe them. Thompson, like Douglas Campbell before him, is often the youngest theatre artist in a room or a theatre. It’s why he lasts and why he’s been relevant.

A JOURNALIST CONTACTED ME RE THE POSSIBILITY OF (him) DOING A STORY ON THE NATIONAL THEATRE SCHOOL (NTS) CELEBRATING ITS 50th ANNIVERSARY.

The question he asked: Is NTS  a wonderful place with highly successful alumni as the ads say or is there someone he should talk to who may have another perspective on acting schools, what they promise and deliver? 

This was my response to the journalist:

You may be asking the wrong person or the right person, depending on where you sit with the idea (creation) of an acting school, its purpose, importance, or relevance.

Though my ideas on acting schools have somewhat changed since the late 1970s, some ideas have not, in particular where it pertains to establishments like the National Theatre School. 

In the ‘70s, the theatre people I hung out with were generally allergic to NTS. It was perceived as an establishment type (privileged) institution that apparently guaranteed a quicker entry into the sacred kingdom of Canadian theatre, Stratford in particular.  Of course! The “allergy” was in part due to the opinion that NTS preached, taught and practiced a colonialist, trickle-down, top-down theatre education template. The school, in the view of many in English Montreal, did not promote or instill individual expressions of acting reflecting the dreams and nightmares of an authentic Canadian reality but a standardized approach to theatrical expression – from England.  NTS did not reflect a (1970s) present-day, organic Canadian reality but an imposed (colonialist) reality in which Canadians would constantly be made to feel second-class citizens on home turf unless they could pretend to sound and look more English than the English from England. Culturally speaking, in the ‘70s, “National” was a misnomer.  Colonial was a better fit. I know that with time the school has probably changed its approach to acting and theatre. How much?  I don't know the answer to that. But there’s the rub.  Take Julliard, for example.

According to many theatre people and audiences in New York, the best production ever of Angels In America (Millenium Approaches) was its New York premiere in 1992 at Juilliard - when Tony Kushner was a playwright-in-residence at the School.  I saw the play on Broadway in 1993 when I was living in New York. And though people loved the Broadway production they would always point to (and lament) the one produced at Julliard the year before.  Considering how quickly this play hit the stage after the AIDS epidemic of the mid and late 1980s, the question is: has any theatre school in Canada contributed any relevant piece of theatre on issues relevant to the society at large?

There was a time in the 1980s and 1990s when my dear friend (and director) Tibor Feheregyhazi (now deceased) could tell instantly (at auditions) where an actor had studied acting in Canada – just by how he/she approached a character or a text. He was horrified. So was I when he told me. He would apparently listen to (and watch) the actor do his/her audition and would immediately say to himself (he’s from NTS, she’s from York, he studied at Ryerson, or University of Alberta, or University of Regina, or University of Saskatchewan.) Then he'd run to his office and look at his files and the actor's resumé and BINGO! He was always right. Rarely, if ever, did he miss the mark. This is no joke. It’s a nightmare!

Like manufacturing companies that put out cars and appliances year after year spending millions telling people how and why they’re different (cars that ultimately share the basics: carriage, at least four wheels, a motor, a trunk, a steering wheel and seats) acting schools promote easily recognizable acting templates like status symbols, and both the schools and students are proud of that fact.  NTS was no different in the ‘70s and ‘80s and early ‘90s. I can only speak for those years because that is when I became acutely aware of the problem with all acting schools in Canada. The irony is, of course, that a NTS student would have felt a huge sense of pride (and accomplishment) at the comment: “You studied at NTS, didn’t you?”  To many, that statement in the form of a question would have been a huge compliment, and, in many cases, it was meant as a compliment.

Let's not forget: In the late ‘70s and during early ‘80s, Stratford, and many professional theatres in Canada, were enjoying the last days of being run by or populated with repressed, middle-aged gay men (most residing unfortunately in communities hostile to gay people) whose interest lay mainly in well articulated Shakespeare and in young boys with cupid faces and tight butts.   No joke.

In the 1990s of course a different problem emerged: the same people who graduated from the school in the '70s and '80s now considered it a status symbol to teach there, whether they were qualified or not did not matter.

in 2001, a young ('hot') director I was working with at Soulpepper informed me that he had just been offered a job to teach at NTS. Should he take the job, he asked?  This young director was very bright, but his understanding of actors and acting was minimal, intellectual at best. I suggested that if he had long-term plans and goals with theatre he should choose an experienced  director whose work he admired and to propose him/her to NTS and to also propose that he be allowed to assist him/her. The young director thought my suggestion was interesting and then accepted the job.
                     
In other words, the institution, what it represents as a cultural symbol, as a status symbol, for its students and its teachers, is bigger and more culturally relevant than the artists and teachers that attend or teach there and bigger than the art the students produce.               
     
This is no different than the Canadian bureaucratic artistic community at large that has castrated our culture, where the institutions are privileged and funded and not necessarily the artists, where culture has noting to do with the art artists produce but with the general noise being made about culture in the various cultural institutions, where it's often more attractive and rewarding to work for an arts institution or council than to work as an artist in the real world having to apply for an arts grant.
       
Here’s a story you may find interesting: In 1982, at Stratford, while working as an apprentice actor, I was asked to be the tour guide for the visiting French acting class from NTS (I spoke French). A colleague was asked to be the tour guide for the English acting class from NTS. At one point both groups met in the main festival theatre. The English students were there first: as soon as they set foot on the stage you could swear they had just landed in MARS or in HEAVEN: they froze, awestruck at the immensity of the moment, choked and numbed by it. They couldn’t move. They clearly were treating it like an altar, like something that was beyond their humanity, a far cry from where any actor (a devil, or Arlecchino) should be. When the French students hit the stage: BOOM! No fear! The place exploded. Immediately the French actors ran across the stage, broke into soliloquies and song and duets, ran up the aisles, went all the way up to the catwalk and exchanged (yelled) dialogue with schoolmates from scenes they were studying at NTS. The place literally exploded with electric energy. There was no reverence for the place. The French students immediately justified why that theatre was built in the first place. Young as they were, they literally took it over. Made it their own for the brief time they were there.Owned. There’s the difference. I was very depressed that afternoon in 1982. I knew that what I had seen defined (culturally and artistically) the two Canadas of the two solitudes.

English NTS had clearly prepared the students to revere the place; French NTS had encouraged the actors to be and express all of who they were. And they did.

Simon Callow, since 1985 (in his book: Being An Actor), has been addressing the diminished role of the actor (and his craft) in the theatre.  In his 2001 Foreword of Michael Chekhov’s reprinting of “TO THE ACTOR”, Callow states: “The last time there was a full debate about acting in the British theatre was in the late 1950s and early 1960s of the last century, and it may be interesting to consider what came out of it. The debate was provoked by the revolution in playwriting at the Royal Court Theatre, which led to an urgent demand for new kinds of acting.”

This revolution apparently ushered in the (historically and culturally important) wave of “angry young man” theatre: Look Back In Anger, etc.

Today, Callow says, experiment has become “centered on design and concept, both under the control of the director. The actor’s creative imagination – his fantasy, his instincts for gesture – (is) of no interest; all the creative imagining (is) done by the director and the designer.”

Callow would not be surprised to learn that most theatres in Canada (AND THEATRE SCHOOLS) practice director-driven theatre – and a mediocre one at that.  And it’s killing our theatre. Even those companies (AND THEATRE SCHOOLS) purportedly claiming to be actor-centered theatres (OR SCHOOLS), and founded on that principle, have, sadly, abandoned what they set out to be, and have become, instead, colonialist-second-fiddle-facsimile establishment theatre companies and schools.  Nothing more. The theatres (OR THEATRE SCHOOLS) may be different in size and yearly operating budgets, but the mentality is one and the same. IN ENGLISH CANADA.

Can you imagine a revolution on acting being provoked by present-day “resident” playwrights out of the Stratford or Shaw Festivals - or even Soulpepper?  Or from NTS? Or from any of the smaller companies or theatre schools?, or from our community of playwrights? Not in a million years. The colonialist-infested mindset permeating professional theatre and acting schools (NTS is no exception), and the pursuit of dollars, success, and a relative – minuscule - fame in the place of the pursuit of ideas and organic creations that deal with issues our society deems important, taboo or ignores, have essentially castrated our theatre and theatre artists.

Theatre schools, like our playwrights and theatre companies - for the most part – foster and want good-little-boys-and-girls actors. At least, the pedagogic template and theatrical works by professional playwrights and theatres  - for the most part - emanate that energy and reflect that need.

Since the ‘50s we have built more cathedrals of theatre than anything else, and take pride in that fact. NTS is one of our finer cultural institutions. Has it nurtured and fostered actors who have created lasting original authentic Canadian works? How many?

Great societies of the past (enjoying an explosion of cultural activity) did not promote the positives; they acknowledged - and took responsibility for - the negatives: the positives took care of themselves. After 50 years, it’s better for NTS to ponder what it didn’t do, where it failed and why, instead of celebrating what it has done and where it has succeeded.  Like any theatre production the audience, the public, ultimately, rightly or wrongly, tells us whether our theatre or acting has been relevant or not.

And if the be all and end all of our collective and individual cultural efforts (if the goal of our theatre and acting learning and practice) is to end up playing a lead role in Bonanza, like Lorne Greene, in Star Trek, like William Shatner, or Sandra Oh in Grey's Anatomy, then maybe we should consider voting for a head of government whenever Americans go to the polls. The question is: If Sandra Oh had never landed a role in Grey's Anatomy where would she fit in Canada's present-day cultural (TV/film/theatre) landscape?  And if a "national" theatre school (English side) instills a sense of individual voices and expression why would Andrew Moodie feel the need to write for the spring 2011 issue of ACTRA TORONTO PERFORMERS "Sharing the Spotlight: Diversity is not about taking the spotlight away from anyone; it's about sharing the spotlight together"? And why would ACTRA winter 2011 Magazine include an article (with contribution by Jani Lauzon - Actra Diversity Chair) that stresses "Today, over 11 million people in Canada are either culturally or physically diverse (visible minorities, Aboriginal or disabled). The outcome of this is seen visually in our daily lives as one walks on our streets but is not reflected on our screens."?
           
This refrain has been playing on repeat for awhile. Canada has been promoted as one of the most culturally diverse countries on the planet for awhile, at least since the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism  (established July 19, 1963) handed in its final report in 1969. NTS was established in 1960. Do the math.

Best regards,


Tony

Olbermann: the beginning of the end of America

The MULTI contradictions and nightmares of the Multi-cultural Canada(s)

In view of what happened in the Quebec National Assemby (National Assembly turns away Sikhs - http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/National+Assembly+turns+away+Sikhs/4130758/story.html#ixzz1BYDY81fm  and Barbara Kay's Multiculturalism ‘is not a Quebec value’ http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/01/19/barbara-kay-multiculturalism-is-not-a-quebec-value/#ixzz1BYDIP8Xc) I think it's important to copare these facts and articles with comments made in recent Episodes of The Agenda on the state of the Canadian State (see Still Lamenting a Nation, Ken Dryden - Becoming Canada, Who is Your Canada?, The trouble with Canada...still, see http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda) here are a few comments:

Ken Dryden's school example baffles.

If children congregate in tribal groups at lunchtime and not during class, if the luxury existing in the former is denied in the latter, the math is clear:  the children are (FEEL) freer in the former than in the latter. They are themselves in the former and who-they-are-told-to-be in the latter.

The whole Canadian concept of multiculturalism and multicultural harmony (as it has been has been preached) is largely a fabrication with a nightmare boiling underneath and waiting to explode. 

The only reason the Vesuvian nightmare has not erupted is because there are enough federal and provincial institutional COMA CENTRES that attempt to numb (and to some degree do numb) the senses, that (like the school Drydren mentions) contain the problem, minimize it's effects, with a ton of meaningless eye candy and by putting the focus on something else (other subject matters and chocolate covered dog bones).

Dryden's example is great for revealing what's NOT working in Canada. Any multiculturalism that excludes English and French Canadians is in fact not multiculturalism but 'otherculturalism'... a branch... a gigantic twig on the Bicultural Maple Leaf Tree.

Richard Gynn no doubt longs for the good old days.

The ridiculous notion that all Canadians have a fundamental self-confidence problem (and that feel-good projects such as the Vancouver Olympics with it's 'let's own the podium' battle cry will over time heal the self-inflicted pathology of inferiority) is NOT SHARED BY MOST CANADIANS of non-ethno-English backgrounds. 

French Canadians have no problem wanting to own a podium. And the many diverse communities in Canada are not comprised of mainly fear-infested individuals who believe it is their birthright to underachieve. YET no one takes Richard Gwyn or that idea to task. Ever. Roberto Martella could have. Partly did. He was skating around that subject. But said more than the others.

There is unfortunately too often tacit agreement in group conversations on issues and labels that most non-English Canadians disagree with (and manifest differently) in reality, and in how they view, define and manifest the concepts of will and sense of self.

Institutionally? That's another story.

There is a perception problem.

Roberto Martella, by the way, was born in Canada NOT in Italy.

But that's not the perception problem.

Richard Gwyn's "Can I say a word in defense of the old Canada?"

Everything that official and institutional English Canada is and promulgates is in defense of an old Canada, the one that Gwyn and many others like him lament daily, a Canada largely surviving (maybe solely) on institutional privileges and protection, and, facsimile culture, borrowed culture, memory culture. 

The old Canada didn't allow multiculturalism; it HAD to allow some semblance of it. Many of the immigrants that came to Canada in the early part of the 20th century were coming to America, not Canada, or to an almost America for those who could make the distinction between Canada and the US. Canada benefited greatly from the many immigrants who believed they had come to a promised land offering the same rights as in the States. That's why "multiculturalism"could happen here and not in Germany. A lot of people came to Canada and stayed. Germany was never America in the minds of emigrants. Canada was, or was close enough.

Once these people settled in Canada, had children, and did not return to the old country (as English Canada would have preferred during the first half of the 20th century) they naturally began to share - especially through their Canadian-born children, in the feeling (and right) of entitlement. But institutional Canada was not (is not) structured to accommodate more than two entitled tribes. Never was. The multicultural carrot was - is - less than a carrot. It's yet another imaginary nation within an imaginary nation. If a WASP Canadian were to be asked if he or she belonged to a multicultural community, he/she would respond: "No, I'm just Canadian."

Multiculturalism is an expensive dog bone and Richard Gwyn wants everyone to know that he belongs to the tribe that paid for the deluxe dog bone for 'ethnics', that unlike other countries' treatment of animals, their pet dogs and cats, Canada has allowed all animals to live in the house, on the bed, and gave them the very best dog food money could buy.  What more could the animals possibly want, given where they came from?

Multiculturalism is a mirage... it's not real and it won't go away. It reflects a disturbing reality. A recurring dream or nightmare.  It's Lady M's blood-spotted hands that appear but won't disappear no matter how hard she tries to rub them out. The fact that multiculturalism automatically excludes English and French Canadians tells you it's not what it purports to be.

The funny thing is this: Richard Gwyn says, "Can I say a word in defense of the old Canada?" as if he had been saying something else all along.

Dryden is correct in saying that the polite, nice, respectful, and clean Canada gave birth to multiculturalism. The problem is in the definition of what type of multiculturalism we have. It failed. In my opinion. Dryden and Gwyn on the other hand believe it's a success story.. and that it makes us world class in the eyes of the world. It's a dog bone with added sugar. Nothing more. It's a huge failure, as with many other social experiments in Canada. That is why people like Ken Dryden were embarrassed by Canada-defining descriptions and labels of 'polite', 'clean', 'nice', etc., not because they are bad qualities in and of themselves but because they reflect a general Anglo-Canada timidity with manifesting any type of will or opinion on any progressive front, and because Dryden knew instinctively (practically from birth) and via too many living examples around him, that those qualities produced - and could only produce - MEDIOCRITY.


The WE Steve Paikin mentions is the big difference.  I'm glad he opened that can of worms. Dryden fumbled on that one. But here's an answer to Steve Paikin's question of WHO IS THE WE?

The following is from Andrew Cohen's essay: Imagining Canada's 153th birthday.

"No, this isn't your father's Canada. Nor is it the Canada of Sir John A. Macdonald, Mackenzie King, Lester Pearson, Brian Mulroney, Pierre Berton, Margaret Atwood, Michael Bliss, Douglas Coupland, or Avril Lavigne. They would not recognize it, and few in this new country would recognize them The nation roams around under a cloud of amnesia, as if nothing happened before yesterday: This summer holiday - what do they call it? This capital - what does it represent?  This Parliament - what does it do? July 1 was once Canada Day (in prehistoric times, it was Dominion Day) and this was a national celebration. Ottawa was a national capital and Parliament was a national legislature. There is no 'national" anymore becaue there is no nation, at least not as we knew it. Canada is a country in little more than name. It has taken the 19th century idea of the nation-state and turned it on its head; Canada is now a collection of many nations (its ethnic minorities) who know only their own past, and many states (its provinces) that now know only their own interests...Now in 2020 we look around in despair. In the voiceless country there is no left to recall its past, no one left to celebrate its principles, and no one left to speak its name."

The above is a perfect description of present-day Canada, and the tribal Canada I've known my whole life. So what is Andrew Cohen talking about? The FUTURE? Is he insane? Is he out of touch with reality? Just a little maybe. There's no imagination required in what he says. That which he believes can and will be Canada's unfortunate future is actually present-day Canada.

But m important: WHO is Andrew Cohen talking to? Who is his WE?

Look at the books, who wrote them and why:

CANADA IN 2020
LAMENT FOR CANADA
THE TROUBLE WITH CANADA
IF YOU LOVE THIS COUNTRY
THE UNFINISHED CANADIAN
Who We Are: A Citizen's Manifesto

There is a common WE in these books. It's not the WE in Québéc and not the WE shared by the many people who came to these shores since the latter part of the 19th century. In many ways it's a WE that never was - never existed - across the entire nation, except within the reality and minds of  Anglo-Canadians .

The MOSAIC WE is a Canadian ad campaign. It's also an outsider's view of Canada, of how a Canadian family celebrates birthdays. It does not carry the knowledge of what is driving a huge wedge between the family members, the cultures in Canada, and what dis-unites them.It's an opinion largely based on ignorance of facts and travel books and brochures.

It's a Father-Knows-Best "wish we could re-live '50s television again". Meanwhile Robert Young was busy trying to kill himself. His Wikipedia Bio is a perfect description of Canada. "Despite his trademark portrayal of happy, well-adjusted characters, Young's bitterness ... never diminished, and he suffered from depression and alcoholism, culminating in a suicide attempt in the early 1990s."  Took him more than 83 years to muster the courage to end his life.And failed at that. Like Canada. Doesn't know how to live and it won't kill itself, but dying nevertheless..

WE are in trouble,

and the fact that many people in English-Canada (as Steve Paikin echoed in Still Lamenting a Nation) keep underlining the glorious nation-defining '60s  ... when CANADA WAS (apparently) COOL, is insanity. It reflects Canada the ONE-SIDED country.

I have lived in Québéc, raised there, worked there, still do, and speak French. I have yet to hear people in English Canada describe the Québéc I know. The events of the last couple of days in Québéc remind us that the ethnocentricity of the Two Solitudes is alive and well.

In Québéc the '60s are seen as the years of reckoning, the years that finally settled some truths. It gave birth to an active, very vocal and loud French-Canadian voice too long suppressed in service of, to benefit and accommodate, Anglophones of Lower Canada.  It ushered in the nationalization of Québéc companies. The FLQ manifesto read on the air during the October 1970 crisis - as a condition for releasing British Trade Envoy Cross - was partly responsible for escalating matters at the time. Why? Most French-Canadians had no problem with the FLQ's manifesto and its content. They agreed with it; they had a problem with the FLQ's tactics (murder).

Film maker Pierre Falardeau (deceased) was (is) very popular in Québéc. His funeral and the eulogy by his son (and another memorial speech by one of Québéc's well known actors) played like political rallies for the separatist movement.  If it weren't for how the separatist movement (and Québéc)  ignores the other cultures and the aboriginals there's very little wrong with it.

English Canada is in a dream world. French Canada is in a let's wait and see mode. Meanwhile the country is changing dramatically in both English and French Canada. Has been for years. And within this new reality the TWO-SOLITUDES Canadas fight even harder to keep a past alive as a present, they need to keep alive the Plains of Abraham in order to preserve the memory of the Canadas of Old... on both sides. That's what you get when you don't have a country with an idea of nationhood and rights that transcend cultural tribes. English and French Canada have given Canada the Canada it has. The other diverse communities ape the mainstream and keep to themselves, every lunchtime, just like the students in the school Dryden visited and talked about.

Tony Nardi