Congratulations on the success of Portrait of an Unidentified Man. How did you first hear of Elmyr de Hory?
I first came across the story in a very slim book – a collection about frauds, cons and flim-flam artists. The article on Elmyr was short,  but it hinted at a deeper story with dramatic possibilities. Finding biographical details was difficult, but I soon discovered a documentary on his life, as well as an odd bio-pic on Elmyr by Orson Welles (his last film), and the questionable biography by the notorious Clifford Irving (author of the fake Howard Hughes diaries). At first I was having trouble with all of this material because it was impossible to tell what was a lie and what was the truth … until I realised that this dilemma in itself was actually one of the most potent themes of the story I wanted to tell.

So was it a hard show to develop theatrically?
It wasn’t difficult, but I did have to be patient for the end result. I thought the process was a bit like a painting … start with a blank canvas, choose the subject and the background and sketch the story out, then go over that canvas again and again, draft after draft, layering it along the way … adding depth and detail, letting the final portrait come through on its own. This also involves a close collaboration with a dramaturg whose job it is to keep the focus of the play. Then there are workshops to get the work on its feet – how it moves and feels. This is where fine adjustments and tweaking are done. More often than not, the real story of the piece is not what I originally thought it would be, because as you advance in the work, your understanding of it evolves. 

Why do you think the show has been so successful and why does it travel so well? What will Christchurch audiences make of it?
I think many people are initially drawn in by the sheer magnitude of the hoax … people want to know “how did he do it?  How did he fool so many for so long?” But my hope is that they come away from the theatre with more than that – with a connection to this elusive yet charming character who perhaps touches on some part of themselves, and with some deeper questions that I have tried to layer into the play. I hope this will be the case for Christchurch audiences too!
As far as the show’s ability to travel, Elmyr’s story spanned four decades and two continents, and had a profound impact on the international art market. The questions the play asks about the nature of identity, and the relationship between art and the artist, are not specific to one country or one region, so I’d like to think it has a fairly broad appeal internationally.
One of the other reasons the show travels well is that it was designed specifically for touring. We use a stretched canvas that fits in a large sports bag and has been specially treated to bring out certain colours when hit with certain lights. Because de Hory specialised in Fauvism, which is characterised by vibrant primary colours, the canvas can saturate certain hues so that it genuinely looks like he is part of a painting. The designer uses only this canvas and the lighting to create Elmyr’s palette, so it’s very economical, both financially and artistically. 

You've worked on one-man shows before – why do you enjoy the genre so much?
This is actually my second solo show of a trilogy. The first was Blood on the Moon, the story of an Irish immigrant to Canada who was accused of our country’s first and only federal assassination, then convicted in a show trial and in 1869 became the last man to be publicly hanged in Canada.
My most recent show 5 O’Clock Bells was about the great jazz guitarist Lenny Breau – about his amazing early life, his profound influence on the instrument and his murder.
All these solo shows are about individuals who lived on the periphery of society and yet had a profound influence on the people and events surrounding them, whether in the realm of Canadian history, jazz music, or in the case of Portrait,  Elmyr’s continuing influence on the world art market.
That’s what I’m getting at when I say that with every solo show, the story and character have to be paramount. The play can start to be about the performer, which is why I have to have an outside eye … a director.

You began your performing life as a stand-up, would you say you are a comic actor more than a comedian and what is your theatre background?
I trained as an actor, but stand-up was also a great love of mine. It was as if I had two ambitions that almost never met. I never told people in the theatre that I did stand-up because I found they didn’t take me seriously. The comedy clubs felt the same way about actors. So I kept one from the other for decades. But interestingly, as my skill in each started to develop, one began to inform the other. I could use theatrical devices to sell my comedy, and the razor-sharp timing required in comedy helped make me a better actor.
Also, the rough-and-tumble world of stand-up virtually cured me of stage fright.  I might be nervous about how the theatre audience is going to react to my play, but I’m pretty sure that unlike the comedy club, no one is going to toss a beer bottle at my head … but then again this is my first time in Christchurch!  

What excites you theatrically?
Risk! Calculated risk. Safety is television, Hollywood and sitcoms. The theatre, if it’s done well, is dangerous. Theatre should have consequences. When I’m performing and I start to feel safe, I know something is wrong. But if I’m walking that tight-rope of reality, and the audience is with me, we walk it together … we share that danger.

Do you think Canada develops great theatre, and why?
Like New Zealand, Canada is sometimes a victim of its richer, more populous neighbour. It has often been hard for Canadians to develop a real sense of identity other than being “not American”. Sometimes this has led our theatre to be something of a parochial exercise, to get our stories told, our history celebrated.  That was an important first step to development, but much of that has changed. Cutting-edge theatre is now produced across our country and exported around the world.
In many ways, Canadian theatre is characterised by its diversity … it’s an enormous country geographically so regional differences are substantial. Then there’s the cultural diversity that comes with a huge immigrant population, language diversity, and of theatrical form as well. As one might expect, all this diversity is not without its challenges, but I feel it’s one of Canadian theatre’s greatest strengths.

Tell me about Sleeping Dog Theatre.
It is a company I founded with my partner, producer Judi Pearl, as a vehicle to develop, produce and tour my solo work. When we started in 1999 we didn’t really know where we were going with this form, but over the course of the past 10 years we’ve had a wonderful opportunity to develop our own aesthetic, working with a core team of collaborators (mainly directors and designers). With every show we try to give ourselves new challenges, pushing the limits of solo performance and – we hope – making a unique contribution to the genre. The relationship between the audience and performer is paramount … Also, as a playwright and performer, I am driven to bring these stories of “lost” cultural figures to a wider audience, to re-introduce these influential yet strangely forgotten individuals back into the cultural discourse … and to find the best possible way of telling their stories.

What's next?
5 O’Clock Bells will be touring western Canada over the next few months, including a three-week run in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which was Lenny’s hometown, so we’re excited about that.
We’re also developing a new project about Dai Vernon, a great sleight-of-hand artist who was born and raised in Ottawa. Like our other subjects, he was extremely influential in his own milieu, but few outside the sphere of professional magicians know his name. He became obsessed with the pursuit of the perfect card trick, and spent years hunting for a notorious gambler who had reportedly figured it out.  We want to use this story to delve into the relationship between magic, chance and theatre.

Portrait of An Unidentified Man
Great Hall, the Arts Centre
30 July - 2 August, 7.30pm
1 August, 2pm