Two Letters ... & Counting!

Although he has won plaudits and awards for work in film, television, and on stage, Tony Nardis most recent headlines have been earned by his Three Letters, in which he is the only actor who reads letters he has composed and that address a variety of social, cultural, and professional subjects. These Letters are not at all like other dramatic monologues -- Spalding Grays or Joan Didions "The Year of Magical Thinking" or Quentin Crisps "The Naked Civil Servant" or any other of a very broad genre -- because they are not meant to be simply memoirs or epistles. For one thing, they are studded with phrases and sentences in French and Italian rather than being all in English. The Letters also constitute a long, serial Jaccuse, where each monologue has been provoked by a distinct experience.