ART IMITATES AUTISTIC LIFE
One-man play at Fringe Festival
The setting is a sparse basement room in the St-Laurent borough’s Summit School. But it could just as easily be a Broadway stage as Montreal actor Claudio Tamburri is nothing short of electric while rehearsing his oneman play I, Christopher, which begins its six-day run Thursday at the Fringe Festival.
Tamburri’s Christopher is in a funk. He has lost another job. After earning a bachelor’s degree in theatre, he can’t find acting work, let alone even the most menial kind of labour. He’s behind on rent. He can’t apply for unemployment insurance because he didn’t accumulate the minimum number of days on the last job. He can’t approach his mother for money because she wants him to make it on his own. His father is out of the picture. So is his sister.
Christopher also seeks companionship but comes up short in that department as well. He’s fed up with feeling he’s slow, not good enough. He fears, rightly so, that his struggle to survive and to
be understood is directly related to his developmental disability, to his being on the autism spectrum. His angst has hit the boiling point.
Wow.
It’s no accident that Tamburri brings such raw emotion and staggering conviction to the role. It’s pretty much his life that he’s reprising in his debut solo play, which he also wrote. Talk about art so poignantly imitating life.
Tamburri is a former student at Summit School, where he first hooked up with the school’s performing arts coordinator Jesse Heffring. The two later worked together on a couple of school plays and a documentary. Tamburri, as a mature student, went on to earn a degree in theatre at Concordia, and while he was able to land a few acting parts, he hasn’t been able to establish himself as he feels he should.
I, Christopher, directed and produced by Heffring, could change that. It will certainly put the theatre world on notice that Tamburri is a force to be reckoned with.
Even after watching Tamburri rehearse this role as well as perform others countless times, Heffring is again captivated taking it all in.
“It all works because it’s authentic,” Heffring says. “It feels so real.
“Theatre is one area where we can sort of shift society’s perceptions about individuals on the spectrum in a way that is very positive and thoughtful. This play is essentially about someone trying to find his place in the world. Someone like Claudio who is higher functioning on the autism spectrum, but someone who has a lot of frustrations.”
Heffring hopes this play can lead to better public understanding.
“So people won’t jump to the conclusion that there’s something here to be afraid of when they see someone who is socially awkward and different. Instead, they would hopefully just see another way of being, another way of expressing.”
Tamburri, 32, is particularly candid offstage, talking about his life and issues. Unlike the character he portrays, Tamburri now has a job as a baggage handler at the Trudeau airport, but he did have his share of employment problems prior to landing the gig. Regardless, Tamburri’s goal is to be able to subsist as an actor on stage or screen.
“I worked hard to get my degree, so I feel I should be doing something in my field of expertise,” says Tamburri, who served as an intern at last year’s Fringe fest. “I know I have an intellectual disability, but I know I can act and I’m hoping this play could be my big chance.”
Tamburri recalls his university days with classmates who took pride in being perceived as different while he was simply desperate to fit in.
“I actually did this performance piece at Concordia where I asked this question: ‘Would you rather be weird or normal?’ It was a modern adaptation of Richard III. I had students say ‘weird,’ and I asked why. I ranted, saying they had the privilege of acting weird without being discriminated against.
“These students can control their weirdness. They have the social skills to do so. They don’t have learning difficulties and they aren’t on the spectrum. They can be weird at the appropriate time. They’re lucky. All I really want is to be accepted, be it as weird, normal or anything. Just to be accepted for being me. That’s it.”