GREGORY J. REID
With productions of nine of his plays behind him (including his translation of Eduardo de Filippo's Filumena for the Stratford Festival in 1997), playwright and actor Vittorio Rossi has become one of Canada's best-known dramatists of Italian origin. He began his writing career by winning the Best New Play Award at the Quebec Drama Festival twice: for "Little Blood Brother" in 1986 and for "Backstreets" in 1987. His first full-length play, The Chain, broke attendance records at Centaur Theatre, English Quebec's main stage. His most acclaimed drama, The Last Adam, won the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for Drama in 1996. Rossi's career as an actor, in addition to his work in his own plays, has included roles in such films as Snake Eater II: The Drug Buster (1991), Canvas: The Fine Art of Crime (1992), Le Sphinx (1995), Strip Search (1997), Suspicious Minds (1997), and the award-winning Post Mortem (1999); and televison series such as Malarek (1989), Urban Angel (1991), Bonanno: A Godfather's Story (1999) and the number-one-rated television show in Quebec for its three-year run, Omerta (1996, 1997, 1998). I met with Rossi at the Café Via Crescent on Crescent Street in Montreal, December 8, 1999. We discussed the situation of actors in Canada, the process of translation and adaptation, the background of the plays and his reaction to their critical reception, and his work in progress: the film adaptation of a crime novel for Denys Arcand, the scripting of a television series with Luc Dionne (creator of Omerta) and the film adaptation and production of Rossi's own shoe-store drama Scarpone.
Le dramaturge et comédien Vittorio Rossi, dont neuf pièces ont été mises en scène (incluant sa traduction de Filumena d'Eduardo de Filippo au Festival de Stratford en 1997), est aujourd'hui l'un des plus importants dramaturges canadiens d'origine italienne. Dès ses débuts comme écrivain pour le théâtre, il remportait à deux reprises le Prix de la meilleure nouvelle pièce au Festival de théâtre de Québec: en 1986 pour «Little Blood Brother» et en 1987 pour «Backstreets». Sa première pièce en deux actes, The Chain, a attiré des foules record au Théâtre Centaur, principal théâtre de langue anglaise au Québec. Il a obtenu en 1996 le Prix littéraire pour le théâtre de l'Association des auteurs canadiens, pour son plus grand succès, The Last Adam. En plus de participations comme acteur dans ses propres pièces, Rossi a aussi joué au cinéma, notamment dans Snake Eater II: The Drug Buster (1991), Canvas: The Fine Art of Crime (1992), Le Sphinx (1995), Strip Search (1997), Suspicious Minds (1997) et dans le film primé Post Mortem (1999). On a aussi pu le voir dans les séries télévisées Malarek (1989), Urban Angel (1991), Bonanno: A Godfather's Story (1999), de même que dans la très populaire série Omertà, qui a été présentée pendant trois ans à la télévision québécoise (1996, 1997, 1998). J'ai rencontré Vittorio Rossi au Café Via Crescent, rue Crescent, à Montréal, le 8 décembre 1999. Nous avons discuté de la situation des acteurs au Canada, de la traduction et de l'adaptation, de la genèse de ses pièces et de ses réactions devant leur réception critique, et enfin de ses travaux en cours: l'adaptation cinématographique d'un roman policier pour Denys Arcand, le scénario d'une nouvelle série pour la télé avec Luc Dionne (créateur d'Omertà) et l'adaptation et la production cinématographiques d'une de ses propres œuvres dramatiques, Scarpone.
GR:I understand that you are working on three film scripts.
VR:Yes. Two are features and one I'm actually co-writing for a possible two-part mini-series for the CBC.
GR:Is that the one you are doing for Denys Arcand?
VR:No. No. The one for Denys Arcand, that's based on an American book called The Dishwasher. It's not a well-known book, nor is the writer a well-known writer. He got out of jail in June. In California. San Francisco. So he's an ex-con. He was a bank robber. And while he was in prison, for about 15 years, he started writing these tales about criminal life. They were picked up by The San Francisco Chronicle and the next thing you know he's writing these novels. Denys Arcand picked one of these up and said, "Wow, this is a fascinating mind in how he looked at violence, at inner violence." The man himself, according to the book (I take it, it's somewhat autobiographical), is not a murderer. His aim was to rob banks. The story is not about robbing banks, however. It's about someone who was a criminal, comes out and has tried, is trying, to re-establish a normal life. But something happens to the little girl of a friend's and to exact vengeance on that action he now gets involved in violence again. And he's only trying to do right. This is an American book, but Denys Arcand decided to set it in Canada. So we've taken it away from the deserts of Fresno and set it, for now anyway, in Cornwall. He wanted it to be a border town, border meaning Quebec and Ontario where there is a lot of what's happening now, that's a lot of biker problems and stuff. Because the book deals with a lot of that … gang-related stuff. So anyway that's one project. That's for Denis Arcand.
GR:And that's done?
VR:The first draft is done. But I've got to give the second draft by the fifteenth of January.
GR:The hard work.
VR:Yeah, but it's under control, it's under control. The other one, which I'm co-writing, is with Luc Dionne who was the producer and writer of this police drama on Radio Canada, French CBC, for the last three years, a very successful programme ...
GR:Omerta
VR:Yes. It's his project actually. It's in English. That's where I come in because his English ... he speaks it well, he's very fluent but he's not completely comfortable writing. So I'm co-writing this project with him and that is a project also dealing with the problems of bikers. This one is also being set in Ontario for some reason.
GR:You played in the series Omerta, a principal character, the detective Tom Celano, for three years, right?
VR:Yes.
GR:Was that an odd situation for you?
VR:At the beginning it was. It's interesting. I learned a lot working in French. Actually, before that I did a feature film in French as well. So for four years I was working as an actor in French, and what's interesting is that in Quebec, in French Quebec they have their own star system so to speak. Not unlike what the Americans have. In other words, an actor is visible and the public acknowledges it and understands it. It's harder to find that in English Canada. You know, there is so much competition with the Americans in our system. The system in English Canada is always built that way.
One of my good friends, I do research with, is a detective. He works up in Ottawa. So he says, "Come on in, people don't believe you're my friend," and all that. We're old high-school buddies. This guy is a detective. So here we are, we go to Ottawa and like no big deal; we cross over to Hull and it was amazing; I couldn't take money out my pocket to buy a drink. Everybody was like "hey Mr. Detective" to me you know.
So getting back to the star system, here I am on the set with these huge Quebec stars like Michel Coté and Luc Picard and Claude Blanchard, and, oh my God, these are big, big actors in Quebec, you know, and here I am struggling with my French but they wanted someone who could speak French with an Anglo-Italian accent so they got what they wanted. And that was a lot of fun; it was a lot of fun.
GR:Did it feel strange because of course the whole context was Italian?
VR:I wish more time had been given to the writer to deal with the Italian side of the story, the mob thing. In Montreal there's a particular way of doing things, a particular language and how it's communicated. The way a wiseguy might talk here is obviously not the same as in Brooklyn. They're different from the way we are here and that forms how things are done. We don't have guns here, as readily as they do in the States. That's another factor. These are little minor things but on the whole I felt sometimes things were being caricatured a little bit. But other than that I was just an actor for hire. I was doing my job. What was strange was dealing with the French language. It's not my first, it's actually my third language after Italian and English ... So after I screwed up a line I couldn't readily improvise to save that take. In English I had no problem. So I'd think how do I get out of this and then it's "cut, cut, cut" and start all over again. So in that way too, it was strange.
GR:Very humbling, I guess.
VR:Yeah, but I didn't have a big role. I mean I appeared in every segment but I passed through very easily. The guys who played the leads had a lot of pressure on them, that's for sure.
GR:What brought it to an end?
VR:It's a mystery to me [laughter]. No. The French have a very particular way of producing television here. No one else on the continent produces television the way the French do here—not the Americans and not in the west in English Canada. Usually in a series the writer who creates the show like Steven Bochco in NYPD Blue or the guy who created Ally McBeal, they create the show and usually have five or six writers. In the case of Ally McBeal he happens to write all the episodes, that's all there is to it. Steven Bochco, he hardly writes any of the episodes; he oversees everything. It's still his baby; it's still his child. He created that show; he and David Miltch. Here it's one guy, one writer, writing every episode. We were doing thirteen episodes a season. That's the equivalent of six feature films in a year. Thirteen hours—that's like five, five and half, six feature films. That's a lot of work. And because it's television you're trying to map through all the story lines just to remember them. And also another unique thing is that they use one director for the entire show. I mean watch a show, a series, that is produced in a similar way that ours was ... I don't think they were influenced because it's American. It's one on HBO called The Sopranos; it's also about gangsters. It's similar in that it's one story line they pretty much follow for thirteen episodes. And it's thirteen episodes so its not like a regular American series. Mind you it's on HBO so they are more liberal with the language and stuff. Having said that, they do have a staff of writers and a staff of two or three directors. Here they say it's money or something like that. But I think somewhere along the line something gets lost. I remember seeing on the set, the director, as the months progressed, we thought he was going to die. He was getting skinnier and skinnier and skinnier. You know it's just too much work. I think they burned out.
GR:You've got two careers going at the same time.
VR:I'll be honest with you, I started to get frustrated as an actor, very frustrated. I've been with this for twelve years now and a lot of my friends around me, they are so depressed because they work, they work, they work and they don't move up. There is nothing about the profession that is actually run like a business. I mean it is when you talk to the producers who make the deal; they make some good cash, you know, but the rest of it's not run like a business. Actors just can't move up. When I say a star system, I know it denotes something egotistical but I don't know what other term to use. It's something every nation has. England has it. Ireland has it. Italy, Germany, France, Quebec, America. Anywhere where there is entertainment. They have "oh this is our poet; this is our main playwright; these are our actors." Roberto Bennini did not need to do Life is Beautiful to be known. He was known in Europe. He's been known for twenty years or at least that long. Now the whole world knows him. But he was still a respected actor and comedian in Italy, if not in all of Europe actually. Here an English Canadian actor does not even have what a Quebec actor has. That's the irony. Quebec has a smaller market, yet their actors who are on the same level in terms of experience or whatever; they are way ahead. They are on a totally different level. They get offered roles. They don't have to go through the same cop role and stuff like that. We should be at the point now where when an American film comes in and they say "okay, we've got eight roles to give to Canadians." "What have you got?" "Well, we've got the assistant to the detective." Well just give it to someone who's got the experience. We're not even at that level. That's sad.
GR:There's no real building up of credit. I was going to tease you about your last role. Post Mortem. You played the ugly American strangler.
VR:I haven't seen it yet. I read in the paper that it got nominated for best picture [in the Montreal International Film Festival].
GR:It was a good flick.
VR:The director, he was like twenty-five or something.
GR:Your character was awful. I was going to ask you if it's harder to get dates since that role.
VR:Listen, I go to the gym, right? And the day after it opened everyone started to look at me. I go in early in the morning; I go work out at the gym and suddenly these people they were doing these faces, turning around and I said like "what's happened." I've been coming here for like five years and like everyone's blushing. So as I'm leaving that day one of the trainers says "Hey Vittorio, je t'ai vu hier soir sur le cinéma." Which one? Post Mortem. Oh my god, they think I'm a killer. So that's what it was. I was in rehearsals or just about to begin rehearsals for my last play. I get this call from a casting agent. In French: "Vittorio, there's this role and we want you to come in and bla bla bla audition." I thought I heard audition so I said, "Look I have no time right now. I'm busy with this new play [Paradise by the River]. I've never written anything like this before. It deals with a piece of history. There's so much pressure and I don't want to insult the people ... I'd love to but I just don't have time." "Vittorio, it's not an audition; it's an offer." So I said "oh, an offer. For what?" "It's the role of an American. It's a French film but you'll be speaking English. We need you for about one day." I said "Well, like who's this director?" It's this young guy Louis Belanger. I never heard of him. "How does he know me?" He says, "He sees your work on Omerta and he wants you. He wants you to play this role." Based on that he's willing to just give me the role. I said "Send me the script. Count me in." So here I am, I said send me the script, count me in but I have no idea what I'm saying yes to. I read it, I go "holy mackerel! I'm playing ... I kill the main actress!" I don't believe it. This guy sees me as a killer!? No one has ever seen me like that. So I said okay, I'll give it a go.
GR:Does it make a difference that you're an actor when you're writing?
VR:I think it helps. I really do. I'm not ever, ever suggesting that a good writer has to be an actor. Arthur Miller was not an actor and is one of the great playwrights ever. But I think it helps. I definitely think it helps. Sometimes writers tend to overstate things and an actor has a way to communicate things especially on film when you have that camera right here indicating that thought without the line. A good actor has this internal world going on. You know a Hoffman or Deniro, they are so good at character, at getting the viewers to understand what you are thinking. Sometimes, because of that strength, you don't need half the lines the writer writes for you. You keep it visual. In that sense, being an actor helps.
GR:That's an interesting comment, because I've heard it said that good writing is not about what you write, it's about knowing what not to write.
VR:Exactly, like a well written scene is not necessarily what they are talking about. You have a man and a woman, and there's an attraction and they're going to be talking about what the latest sports figures were yesterday. Did the Vikings win or did they lose or whatever? And that's not what it's about. It's about, "oh my god, am I so nervous being with this person?" And that's what's being communicated to the audience. It's something you learn. Sometimes a young writer just states the obvious.
GR:You were also involved in another project that I don't know about, and that I'm curious about: the translation of Filumena for Stratford.
VR:The production, as I understand it, was ready to go with the more common British translation by ... oh my God, I can't remember now. The one that Olivier made famous. That is the one they most often produce around the world, and that's the one they were planning to do. But the director, Anthony Cimolino, decided let's try and do something different. And being Italian, he was able to see certain things in the translation, though they were very true and honest to the original, there were certain nuances that were completely missed, for whatever reasons. It was then that he started thinking, wouldn't it be nice to give this a new translation, and Guido [Tondino, the set designer] said, "Did you ever think of Rossi? I worked with him. The guy can read and speak Italian." They called me up. I said I'd give it a whirl.
GR:So were you involved in the production?
VR:No, not really. I gave them the translation, then I went there for the first four or five days of rehearsals just to be sure that everything was clear in the text. At that time we tweaked a line here or there, made more sense of it. After that it was all in the director's hands.
GR:What did you think about the role of the translator?
VR:It actually helped me with this screenplay, the adaptation of the book. I now have a system, should I ever want to do another translation or an adaptation of a book into a movie. I basically go about it in two steps. The first draft has everything to do about keeping the integrity of the original source. So what I did with Filumena ... I read Italian ... Filumena is not only written in Italian, it's written in a Neapolitan dialect. It's almost like the difference between standard English and then reading a play in an Alabama accent with the "hi y'all doin." It's like that all over the place. So I'm like, wow, I don't think a person from Milan could read this. So what I did in the first draft was to just translate the information. Okay, "Hello, how are you." "I want a cup of coffee." And that's what was translated. After I did that, I took Fillipo's play and put it away. I've been as faithful I as could to you, now I have to make it come alive. So now I used that first draft as the new bible. Now I used the literal translation, so I had every little bit of information even these archaic say- ings that would make no sense in English at all—I put them in. Then I took it and what I think I succeeded in doing, that Cimolino, the director, wanted that the other versions didn't have, was using the English language but keeping Italian speech rhythms, if that makes any sense. And that's similar to the system I used for the movie script. The first draft [of the screenplay] was totally faithful to the book ... well, within reason because the book is so expansive. We had to have some ideas of how to cut even for the first draft, but it was still rather faithful. And now I just cannot work with the book anymore, I have to use that first draft as my bible. Now let's change this ...
GR:There's a lot of discussion about the correspondence between adaptation and translation. You're saying they are pretty similar?
VR:A lot of playwrights in the last ten years suddenly in America have begun adapting and translating. Chekov and Ibsen, but mostly Chekov. People like David Mamet and the Irish playwright ... that wonderful Doll's House, I saw that production on Broadway. [Frank McGuiness].
GR:You write about Italian-Canadian characters, the setting for many of your plays is Ville Emard, an Italian-Canadian neighbourhood. The plays are really steeped in being Italian as well as the Canadian situation. Is that the objective for you, presenting the Italian-Canadian community?
VR:That wasn't an objective, no. It came from the basic thing of writing what you know about. As a matter of fact it was an English professor that yanked it out of me. At Dawson [Montreal, English CEGEP], he's now retired and has moved out West. He was perhaps one of the greatest teachers I ever had—John Lucas. I was in his class and I was taking these writing tutorials with him while I was an acting student at The Dome [Dawson College Theatre]. So I'd be writing these sketches or whatever, and nowhere was there anything Italian about them at all. And he would say he wondered why and he found it odd. And I would say "ahh, we're in Canada who wants to see a bunch of Italians." He found that strange. He says "why are you denying your culture, your heritage. I come from old English and Irish stock." His mother was an American of British heritage and his father was Irish. He kept pushing me that way. Then one summer, I went to Italy for the first time with my mom, my aunt and my two cousins. 1984, my first time, right after my second year of University. And he was going to be there as well, this professor with a friend. He said he was going to be in the north and we were in the south. So I said, "well why don't we meet and just hang out for a couple days?" And he said, "Absolutely. So let's meet in Rome." So we decided on the date and there we are. Here I am with an English professor and a colleague of his. You know, two Anglos and an Italian; and they are telling me about my heritage, saying now look at this and look at that, now look at this. How come you're denying this? Don't you understand that these are your people? Look what they've done. And the British came here and they learned this, and they got this and they went back home and they learned how to do that. And I said, "oh my God what am I doing!" I went home and it was like that professor took a sledge hammer to my head. So this professor single-handedly injected this pride in me. Though my father was doing it to me all my life; sometimes there was an antagonism. See he was a little rough around the edges. So sometimes a son grows up ... we got along ... but you just accepted ... "okay pa, every time there is something happening in this world, there is always an Italian who could do it better, right?" Is that the idea, you know? But when an English professor, an educated man, you know, a very educated man, is telling you well look, Italians are not the best at everything, but they do a lot of good things and they were good in the past ... And suddenly you were inspired by this. That's one reason why I love this movie, Dead Poets' Society. I loved that movie. The idea that this English professor could take these kids, or that one kid and just have him be himself. That's what it comes down to. It's that simple. Be yourself, be honest, you know. So, getting back to the original question, no, it's not an objective but it started out with, you know the professor's right, I've got to write what I know about. If my characters aren't coming off as believable, they won't be believable to Italians or non-Italians. So what am I doing; I'm just wasting people's time.
GR:Are you now influenced or in contact or associated with other Italian writers?
VR:Writers? No. I never was actually. I don't really know ... I know they exist. On the French side, there's like Marco Micone. No, I know a few Italian Canadian actors but not writers.
GR:It's interesting that you mention Micone. I don't know if you noticed but in the French review in La Presse of Paradise by the River, they identify you as carrying on the work of Marco Micone of presenting the Italian community to Quebec.
VR:Yeah, I don't think I've met him though. He's big on the French side.
GR:Paradise. It strikes me as a departure from your other plays. I mean it's political, it's historical ...
VR:Yeah, I don't think I ever quite finished that play. I mean I finished it to put on that production, but if I just had a little bit more time ... Yes, it was a departure. It was scary at first. But it was something that had to be told. You know how that started? About five years ago this producer I'm working with now—the one that's producing the mini-series. He hired me about five years ago to do a three or four part mini-series on the Petawawa arrests. And I was involved for two summers on it with different writers and I was the one constant in that whole two years. It just never went anywhere. I remember being so angry about it. Not angry at him, but you know it's just perfect CBC material. It's historic. And I said to myself one day I'll put it on the stage, then we'll see what happens. So I put in more time on the research and stuff. Actually most of the stuff was researched during that period. I did a little bit more for the play two years ago but most of the research was done at that time, five years ago. And yeah, it was definitely a departure. I could have easily turned it into another family drama in which a husband gets arrested and we see how the family reacts in the kitchen. But that's not what interested me. I wanted to do something more epic in scope. Which is why I think it would make perfect material for film.
GR:Do you have a typical starting point for a play? For example, when I look at the early plays—Scarpone, "Little Blood Brother," even, The Last Adam—I get the impression that you started with the place—the shoe store, the back street, the duplex in Ville Emard. You must have sat down and decided, I'm going to write a play about this place. And then it expands outwards. Love and Other Games, there are more locales. Paradise, it moves around. The Chain is also local ...
VR:With "Little Blood Brother" I had no story. I just had three characters. I swear to God, I just had those three characters and, as a matter of fact, the story of that play changed like three times. So I thought if I just put them somewhere it would be great. "Backstreets," that play had a situation. Before I had the characters I had a situation.
GR:A recent death?
VR:Yeah, and it was marked by a couple of incidences. One was a death, both were deaths. One was an overdose in the neighbourhood of a guy who wasn't really a friend, but someone you knew, you know. And the circumstances surrounding it were terrible. And the other was the death of my cousin. She committed suicide ... that hurt the family a lot. She was a beautiful young girl, eighteen. She actually died in the middle of rehearsals for "Little Blood Brother." That really hurt me and pissed me off and that is the only play to this day that I have written out of pure, unadulterated anger—"Backstreets." And it's one of the reasons that I think that it's the best play I've ever written. Just in terms of pure craft I think it's the best play. It's very tight. It's hard to take out a line there and not lose the sense of something. I'm sure I could look at The Last Adam right now ... it's an ambitious play ... but I'm sure if I were to look ... If someone were to want to mount a new production, I'm sure that I could find ways to parse some of that stuff down. I've tried with "Backstreets" and I just couldn't. It's just very tight. So that play started out with a situation. The Chain, I would definitely say a place. So I guess, throughout the years different aspects have started me off. Love and Other Games, I literally tried to set out to do something light. I told Maurice, "Maurice, I can do something light, you know! I can do something really light." "Oh yeah, show me." And I tried. I don't know if it totally succeeded, but to some extent we did.
GR:I don't know if this is significant, but there are two plays that you haven't published: Love and Other Games and In Pursuit of a Cow. I'm astounded that you haven't published Love and Other Games. There is a lot going on in In Pursuit of a Cow. It is a very complex and challenging play. But Love and Other Games is surprising because it does seem light, superficially light, but I notice for example you've got the character, Lira, at one end, who keeps coming up with words that she doesn't know the definitions for, and Fernie at the other end, who has definitions that he doesn't have words for. And I thought, this is a play about the struggle to write. I mean, it's also about Fernie who is also a composer. And I thought it's amazing there really is quite a complex structure under that play.
VR:Thanks. I've never actually been complimented that way, on that play. I thought we had something good there. I really did. I think the Centaur audience was so used to seeing this edgy stuff, that they see something lighter and they say "ahh, that's not what we came for." So I don't think they were willing to give me a chance to try ... I think if someone else had written it, it probably would have been more appreciated. I think. I can't really judge. I don't think they gave me enough credit for attempting something like that where for the first time I'm not asking you the audience to follow one character or two characters but a whole bunch of them that are [interwoven] somehow. And yet the whole thing makes sense. So what was guiding me for the first time was not necessarily the story but a theme: the theme of love and friendship. That was a departure too in a way. The other ones have a very strong story that I'm leaning towards. This one was guided by and united everybody by theme. And I don't think I was given enough credit for this, because it's difficult to pull that off.
GR:That leads me into two questions. One is critical reception. Are you frustrated by the critics?
VR:You know what's frustrating? When things are not criticized intelligently. The most intelligent review I've read of my plays ... okay, yes it was a good review, but it wasn't the Gazette's traditional theatre critic, it was the music critic ...
GR:Kaptainis. I agree. It was an excellent review.
VR:On reading that I said, yeah, he knows. He obviously can tell that I studied the Greeks, the Greek tragedians, and understood what that art form was all about. Miller was doing that in the 40s and 50s with Death of a Salesman. I don't want to get into this dialogue about can you still write a tragedy because it has to be elemental, it has to be about royalty or whatever, that's not what I was trying to do ... I think if Aristotle or the tragedians were alive today, I don't even know if they would look at Shakespeare as pure. Right? So, I mean, like Steiner, they might see Shakespeare as the beginning of the end of tragedy. Because you start to see a glimmer of hope even in Hamlet, because in the end order is restored. Greek tragedies are pure terror. Reading this guy's review, I'm like "oh man!" Why can't we have critics like this? Because if he had nailed me in Love and Other Games I would believe what's said with that kind of intelligence. Yeah, it's frustrating. If you could find Pat Donnelly's review of The Chain. She gets pissed off that there was no French spoken in there. That's like saying a screenwriter cannot write a movie about a family in Westmount where the whole movie takes place in the home and back yard and there are two neighbours who are also Anglo. And for two hours no French is spoken. You cannot believe that situation?
GR:I took note of that comment as well. It's a bit of a dangerous comment but I somewhat interpret this as gender bias. That there is no way that you could ever write a play that would appeal, because, on the one hand if you deal with masculine characters, well there is consistent criticism that he keeps presenting these male, macho characters. And when you move out of that, then it's said that he is dealing with something that he really isn't comfortable with. There's no way in, or no way out, I'm not sure which.
VR:This criticism about machismo or whatever ... I may have been caught up in the early plays with trying to capture something I know. In other words, I was recording what I know about and I'm using whatever skills I have as a storyteller to make it look like a play. Maybe I was. But by the time I get to the last act, I'm not depicting a realistic family anymore. There's realism involved in certain aspects. Okay the tomato canning. Okay, gimme a break. Even the Greeks talked about "we must invade Persia." Okay that means you have to get on a boat and throw a spear and all that. So that's realistic, but obviously it's not a realistic play, it's tragedy. There's details. Yeah, I set it in Ville Emard; we talk about the French and sign laws, but I wasn't trying to depict something ... I mean it was to give the illusion of a reality, but there is something bigger that's going on there. So by the time I got to The Last Adam I wasn't concerned with trying to capture realistic dialogue like in The Chain. I was trying to do something a little different. So suddenly I wasn't concerned with making the father sound ... like in The Chain where [language] is broken up. I said no, I'm not concerned with that. Did Shakespeare concern himself with ... no man, when he's writing Romeo and Juliet it takes place in Verona, what ... is he going to start putting in accents. So I wasn't concerned with that anymore. The other thing too, that, to expect [to] find a kid at that age (what was I? 26) who had that kind of ambition. You should tip your hat that you have someone like that in the community, instead of fucking criticizing that they had no French in there. That's what the brilliance of Maurice Podbrey was. To say "Hey, we're not going to kill this guy because of some ..." You can pick out tons of weaknesses in a Neil Simon script. You can do that with anything. You know what I mean. That is frustrating.
GR:Let me read this into the record. I'm going to read some reviews of a play that had just been produced. This goes back in history a bit. You tell me who the playwright is and what the play is. One reviewer described it as "tangled, pretentious and dull." Another reviewer described it as "completely without merit. Trite and clumsy. Full of unrelieved vulgarity. Proceeding from cliché to stereotype in language that is entirely undistinguished." So those were the comments of the reviewers. The playwright was Arthur Miller. The play was Death of Salesman.
VR:Oh my God! Are you serious?! You're kidding.
GR:When I was reading the reviews of your stuff, I thought I had this, I'll bring it around.
VR:Who did that? It wasn't The New York Times.
GR:One was The Hudson Review. The other was Theatre Arts and another was The Partisan Review. Those were the comments on Death of a Salesman in 1949.
VR:You know I shook his hand about five years ago. I couldn't fucking believe it—Arthur Miller. I actually shook his hand, at a theatre in New York. You know I saw it last year at a revival (I think it just closed) with Brian Dennehy. And here we are fifty years later and the audience comes out crying, wasted, totally wasted. Fifty years later this play is still shaking people up.
GR:I think there is a lot that needs to be addressed in the reviews of your plays.
VR:The one that I thought had a deliberate intention to harm was the Globe and Mail review of Paradise.
GR:I haven't seen it.
VR:I had given it [Paradise] to Maurice in his final year [before retirement as Artistic Director]. He had said something about that he and his successor were going to decide the new season. I don't think that ever happened. I think Gordon [McCall] totally decided his first season. So my play was shelved. They weren't interested. They found some excuse to protect the new guy, you know. So I shelved it, that's that. Next thing you know these lawyers find out that the Petawawa play is not being done. So I get call. They say "Vittorio, bla, bla, bla, bla," you know. I'm thinking "lawyers," what do these guys want with me. "Yes, well we're interested in moving into the business of financing and stuff. We love your work. We've been following your work." "Are you talking about giving me money to produce a play?" So he says "Well can we at least talk about it. What do you think it would cost?" I said, "I have no idea, but I'll have to talk to my director." Next thing you know we're being financed for this production. The financial backers were two corporate lawyers, two accounting firms, and one humungous construction company. So they each put in money. They're all Italians, right. So here we are with a Jewish director, Italian writer, French and English actors with some Italians, multi-national right. But then you read the review ... and they used all their connections. I was stunned to see how cold-shouldered the Centaur was to me. Maurice's regime was pretty much gone. Like what is going on here. We couldn't even use their washing machines to wash actors' costumes. That's part of standard rental pal. When you go on Broadway and you rent the Shubert Theatre, they don't say bring your own washing machine. You use the washing machines that are in the theatre.
Now the program, and I think it was the thickest program the Centaur ever saw. We got some sales people to go out there and ask whoever you want to put an ad in, this is what we are offering. The next thing you know we get a pretty sizeable book. What does she say in her review, something about "a program filled with Italian businessmen's ads." I've never, ever read a review where you criticize the program. And I suddenly thought, "Would you have said that if this were a Jewish thing or a Black thing?" Because someone in the press would have reacted big time to that comment. Because I know amongst us Italians it was like "Hey, what are you implying here?" Look at the ads. They're shoe stores; they're lawyers' offices; accounting firms, and by the way, their clients are not all Italians. A lot of working class Italians can't afford lawyers and accountants. They have "Uncle Gerry" take care of it. And there, too. Okay, you had problems with the play, you couldn't understand the Italian character. I said, you know what, man, the audience, some were admittedly frustrated, but I never gave the Italian character any single line of dialogue that which if you didn't understand you would be confused about the story. And when he had to utter something that contributed to the plot, I made him say it in English. So why the Italian? For that brief moment where you are watching a scene where an RCMP officer or someone is questioning a client back in 1940 they didn't know how to talk. That's what I was trying to let you understand [that they couldn't communicate] and if I did it in English, it wouldn't make sense. I said, come on guys if this was a film there would be subtitles and you'd have no problem with it. And it was not confusing at all, because 90% of the time where he spoke Italian he was cursing ("ah, you sons a bitches" and so on). When you hear someone screaming and cursing in Italian or in English, you're not really losing an element of the plot. What you're missing perhaps is details like what is he actually swearing about.
GR:But every review I read was more or less glowing.
VR:Except The Globe and Mail, she hated it.
GR:Gaetan Charlebois said it was the play of a lifetime.
VR:Yeah, yeah, he loved it. He liked "Little Blood Brother" too. This is The Globe and Mail and what we were astounded with is: I have never in all my years at Centaur, I never recall The Globe and Mail sending their main Toronto theatre critic to fly over to review a play at Centaur. They usually send ...
GR:A local, a Quebecker ...
VR:Right. For some reason, with us, they flew her in and it's almost like go in and kill this one. I don't know. That line is such a cheap shot. What does that have to do with anything? Anyway, it's almost impossible to try something bold. There's always going to be someone who doesn't like it. In this case it was the national paper.
GR:Do you have a particular audience in mind when you're writing? Do you think that much about the audience?
VR:Not a particular audience. I just think of audience. If a writer doesn't bear in mind that an audience is eventually going to see this ... I'm not saying at the actual minute of writing, but when you're revising the play you have to stand back. Steven Spielberg talks about directing that way. I can't imagine any of the great directors not directing that way. Spielberg said "I direct a picture as if I wanted to see it." And I think that a writer at some point in the process before it gets to the stage or the film should bear that in mind or you're lost. You're doing something that may be personal but if it doesn't communicate to the audience ... I could never understand those overly personalized films or plays that ultimately don't communicate beyond a domestic problem.
GR:And the future? Is there any theatre in it?
VR:Yeah, absolutely. I'm never going to abandon the theatre. I had to start this thing in screenwriting. But I forgot to tell you, it's not just screenwriting by the way, it's directing too. Remember, I told you there were three projects. The third one is Scarpone. These young film producers, I mean young. Well, Susan is more my age but Bruce, his name is Bruce Johnson, he's like 28 years old. Give him a dollar and he'll come back in five minutes with five. He's just got this knack for money. I was introduced to him through my sister who used to cut his girlfriend's hair. So he said he had seen my plays and thought they would make great films. He tries to go after The Chain and The Last Adam. And I said, "No, no, no, you're not going to touch those." If I ever turn them into movies, those are ones where you want a little bit of cash and a pretty high-profile actor to play the Dad or the Son. So he comes back and says, "What about Scarpone? We just need a room for that. We just need a shoe store." "Oh you want to go that way." I said okay. These independent American films are fine. I'm alright with that. So I write a first draft, finished a first draft last March. In October we got development money from SODEC [Société de développement des entreprises culturelles]. I just completed a second draft and within a month or so I'm going to have to remove the writer's cap and put on the director's cap. He's aiming for something like a 1.3-1.5- million-dollar budget. He's been working his ass off in Vermont at this film school where his job is to co-ordinate this international talent to come and teach there. So he's been meeting these bright, world-class screen writers and cinematographers and editors. I'm talking about people like [Thelma] Shoonmaker, Scorcese's film editor, and Dante Spinotti, that's who I went to meet on Saturday. Danti Spinotti, the director of photography, he's an Italian. He shot The Insider, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, with DeNiro and Pacino. LA Confidential—he was the director of photography on that. So Bruce says "Look I've got him at the school. You're Italian; he's Italian. Maybe he'll help the kid out." Imagine him helping me out. So I went to meet him. We got along fabulously. He's in another league, so he's got us registered and he'll get back to us. But that's what the meeting was for. If I could get him, it would make a lot of people comfortable because I have to direct it. The truth of the matter is, Greg, I've been preparing for this for 15 years—as an actor, being on sets, seeing mistakes and stuff, but I'm sure I'll make mistakes too, but I'm ready to sail.
GR:This is the one.
VR:Yeah, this is the one.
GR:Fabulous.
VR:And I believe I have improved the story of Scarpone in the screenplay. I made it bigger ... the idea behind it bigger. And there's a plot in it. I realized when I was adapting it that the play never had a plot. It never had a plot. There's no plot, Greg, this guy comes in and says I want to be the manager ...
GR:Sounds like Seinfeld.
VR:Exactly. I'm going to be the manager and at the end of it "guess what, you're not going to be the manager," he gets upset at a woman pretty badly. And in between you have all these funny moments. Theatre can absorb that. A movie you'd be dead. Unless you have Seinfeld and Kramer. So I needed a plot here. So I thought it through and I realized this play's not registering for me because I'm out of that world. Then I thought, "So what is current in our part of the world?" And one of the things I thought of is that with free trade Americans are buying and selling like crazy. So suddenly Scarpone Shoes instead of being an outlet of five or six stores is like a Pegabo's, huge. And Americans are coming in and buying. And caught in the middle is this character who gets fucked over for his promotion. So the emotional heart is still there, but the idea behind it is bigger. You see American manipulation and how these Canadians have to deal with it. So these hot shot New York lawyers come in.
GR:But it's got to be a major change of dialogue. Are you keeping the same characters?
VR:Some that were only talked about, like the owner of Scarpone Shoes, the character named Bosco, he's a major character now, he comes in ...
GR:He's only referred to in the play.
VR:Yeah, he's referred to in the play. I've created another salesman named Angelo. I've created a female representative of this huge American conglomerate. An American lawyer. And then Bosco's lawyers.
GR:Is the stock boy still in it?
VR:Stock boy is still there. Stan, of course, it's still his final day on the job before his retirement. That's still there. But Dino's character, 90% of his dialogue is all new stuff. Because now he finds out early in the picture that Scarpone is going to be bought out. So all promotions are on hold. From then on he tries to manipulate ... he tries to correct that and that means trying to influence the American woman. Then when it still doesn't go his way ... So you see bigger manipulations than what goes on in the play. It's not just about a man and a woman ... I think it's more complex.
GR:Sounds great.
VR:If all goes well we should be shooting in May.
GR:Recent history aside, on the Centaur question, obviously you have pretty good feelings about your past relationship with Centaur. You know that in his memoir, Maurice Podbrey credits you with growing the Centaur audience. Scarpone broke all the attendance records, right?
VR:The Chain did. The Chain broke attendance records, but Scarpone actually had the higher percentage. You see we were extended twice in The Chain. We were going like 96, 97, 98% for like about four weeks. Then we extended for two weeks and those two weeks were at about 70, 75% which is still good. So it brought the average to about 88, 89. Whereas Scarpone was not extended, but we did 94% attendance straight through for four weeks. That's pretty good.
GR:It was a major breakthrough for Centaur. It changed the makeup of the Centaur audience.
VR:You think so?
GR:Podbrey says so in his memoir.
VR:Yeah, I've got great memories of Centaur. Absolutely. He gave me my break. Maurice single-handedly gave me a career. Without Maurice Podbrey I'd still ... well I don't think I'd be selling shoes ... I don't know what I'd be doing. Well, I'd probably still be plugging away, but he ... Maurice Podbrey and his wife, because it was his wife who first noticed "Little Blood Brother" ... If it wasn't for her introducing me to her husband who came to see the play, none of this happens. Yeah, he gave me a career. I'll never forget that, never.
end of tape