Speaking in Draft: Davinder Malhi

/By Nathaniel Hanula-James / Aug 13, 2024

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Speaking in Draft is an interview series in which Intermission staff writer Nathaniel Hanula-James speaks with some of the artistic visionaries shaping Canadian theatre today. In a mixture of light-hearted banter and deep dives into artistic practice, this column invites artists to voice nascent manifestoes, ask difficult questions, and throw down the gauntlets at the feet of a glorious, frustrating artform.

My favourite Speaking in Draft interviews remind me that the question, “Why do I do this work?” isn’t just a paragraph in a grant: it’s a daily encounter with curiosity and doubt that an artist has to repeat over and over if they’re to stay true to themselves and their craft.

My conversation with Davinder Malhi was one of those reminders.

Malhi is an actor, writer, and community builder with a strong sense of “why” in everything he does. You may have seen him onstage recently as the poetic pup Prince in the Segal Centre’s spring 2024 production of Fifteen Dogs, adapted and directed by Marie Farsi; or as Andre, a young man learning the meaning of queer community and care, in the Stratford Festival’s premiere of Casey and Diana, and again in the Soulpepper remount.

Read on to learn this emerging artist’s perspective on acting, writing, the industry — and what to wear on opening night.

When did you first fall in love with theatre?

When I was in fifth grade, our school did a production of The Wizard of Oz. I was like, ‘Oh, my God! Look at those people that I know up there.’ I realized the amount of attention and love and care you can get when you’re onstage.

In a lot of ways, doing theatre was for attention. I say that jokingly now, but as an adult, I’m able to parse through that a little better and ask, what is attention? Attention is care. It’s love. It’s being seen. I think that’s what I was picking up on: this validation of someone’s humanity and existence.

Growing up as a queer kid, I felt like I was meant to disappear. I’m very introverted: I know how to be quiet and not be seen, and just observe. Theatre pulled at this feeling inside me that I wanted more for myself, this desire to take up space.

It’s so interesting that you mention this capacity for introversion, because onstage I think of you as such a no-holds-barred performer.

That’s so sweet. Yeah, I guess sometimes we see ourselves a little differently than everyone else sees us. I do think I’m a generally introverted person. My writing and my art are a way for me to get out of myself and expand myself, same with clothing. But when I’m not doing any of those three things, then I’m just like ‘Okay, time to hibernate and be small.’

Is there an artistic process you’ve been a part of recently that really fed you?

Casey and Diana, hands down. It’s one of the best artistic experiences I’ve ever had in my entire life. [Director Andrew Kushnir] is so good at creating a sense of safety and community in a room. It was the first time in my life that I wasn’t like ‘I’m ready to wrap this up’ after a couple shows. It shifted something in my brain, because every day I went out there to do service to something bigger, to explore, to be curious, and not to tie a nice bow at the end of things. What I learned about that time in history — the height of the AIDS epidemic — was that there weren’t nice bows on things. There were humans fighting one another. There were unresolved relationships. There was so much life that wasn’t concluded.

I think about that show so fondly, and I have so much love for all the other actors. They were so fantastic every day. I was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m allowed to be in your presence, and act next to you, and just learn from you.’

What’s one thing you learned from those amazing actors?

The importance of process. They taught me to care so much about the room we create, how we respect each other, how we speak to one another.

You mentioned being in service to something bigger, and one thing I’ve noticed is that you seem invested in making opportunities for other artists. For instance, you created a retreat for South Asian playwrights that you run through Saawan Collective.

I founded Saawan Collective with a great friend of mine, Sanskruti Marathe. We wanted to create a space where we could learn with other South Asian writers, because we don’t have formal writing training. We decided, let’s get a group of South Asian artists together, let’s get funding, and let’s not teach each other how to write. Instead, let’s try to figure this out together and grow our community laterally. There’s also a huge mentorship aspect to the program because we ask established South Asian writers to come in and speak, and there’s a huge community building aspect: we have South Asian movie nights, music nights, dancing. I want Saawan Collective to be a home base for South Asian emerging creatives, to help them find their footing and to create a network so they don’t feel like they’re the only ones.

I also work at a charity called North York Arts as a program coordinator. I created their microgrants program about two years ago, and we’re shifting it to an awards format. They also have a guest artist program, which is sort of a mini-residency, so I oversee that. There are so many things that work against artists! I want to be the person who’s working in favour of them, to help them deepen their craft and explore themselves; and to create an artistic community that’s nurturing rather than just ‘competition, competition, comparison, comparison.’

I love that you’re not waiting around for someone else to create these programs.

It’s how I’ve always been. I don’t wait around for things. I create my own opportunities. I chase things. I’ve never known how to just sit around and wait, which sometimes does bite me. But for the most part, if I want to do it, I’m going to freaking do it.

If you could wave a magic wand today and change one thing about so-called Canadian theatre, what would it be?

It’s funny you ask, ‘cause I’ve been thinking about this! I read Erum’s interview and Theresa’s — they are so concise and so able to distill all the big thoughts down into such poignant responses. I was like, ‘You know what? I’m not going to fry the big fish, I’m going to fry the small fish.’

Number one: a thing we need to change is, if it’s opening night, you don’t have to feel the pressure of saying hello to everyone. That’s something I feel guilty about a lot. I’m like, ‘I just made 50,000 bad impressions because I didn’t say hello!’ We’re going to collectively agree to relieve everyone of that pressure.

Number two: if you’re not feeling the show, it’s okay to leave at intermission.

Number three: standing ovations. If you feel compelled it’s okay, but you don’t have to stand just because everyone else is standing.

Those are the fish I want to fry today. They’re small fish, but they’re important fish. I think if we can tackle those then we can show up more authentically as ourselves in these theatre spaces.

I love these concise and achievable goals! In your practice as a writer, I’m so struck by the lack of shame or hesitancy in your work. How does your writing practice differ from, or compliment, your practice as an actor?

My writing and my acting are very separate in my head. I rarely write with myself in mind. I feel like I’m very free when I write. Part of that is not being formally trained in writing, and so not putting limitations on myself before I have to or because I was taught those limitations.

What I’ve found is that I’ll watch A Streetcar Named Desire at Soulpepper and I’ll be like, ‘This character I’m writing needs a little bit more Blanche,’ or I’ll watch Hedda Gabler at Stratford and be like, ‘We need to add a little more Hedda into this.’ That’s the way I source other people’s writing techniques or the way they build characters. I find it really fun; it’s like collage.

I find writing deeply frustrating at times when I’m repeating patterns, or not introducing enough conflict, or the characters aren’t pursuing an objective that’s strong enough. Now I’ve started to build a language for writing, and as an actor that language was already there, but still it can be very fun and liberating to not know the rules.

Is there an established or senior artist whose work you find particularly inspiring or relevant to your practice?

I think of Jordan Tannahll. I think of Jeremy O. Harris. I think of Michaela Coel, M.I.A. I look up to people who can speak and not be scared, and who can answer for their work. That’s who I want to be. I want to speak and not be as scared as I always am. Those artists can do it so well, with a profoundness and this innate ability to push the boundaries of their discipline, and I admire that a lot. I want to be like that.

Are there any projects you’d like to shout to the world in this column?

Sanskruti and I are developing a show right now with Pleiades Theater. You can keep an eye out for an announcement early next year. We’ve been developing that show now for about four years — two of those with Pleiades — and that’s a project I’m really excited about.

Projects that aren’t my own that I’m excited for? Roberto Zucco at Buddies. I really like that show. Ted directed our final year production at theatre school, and I remember him talking about Robert Zucco back then. The whole season at Buddies looks very alive and exciting, and so queer in a way that I’m craving: queerness as a feeling rather than something that’s overtly named.

I’m excited for Lana Del Rey’s new album. She’s going country, apparently. She said she’s going to release it in the fall, but I don’t know where she’s at with that. I’ll follow up with her.

I’ve started watching Fantasmas.

Yes! By Julio Torres.

What an exciting creative! That’s another person I look up to. I’m in awe of their imagination. Did you watch their film Problemista?

I did! I loved it.

Sometimes his work feels like a childhood nightmare, in the best way.

I want to hone in on something you mentioned earlier, which was queerness as a feeling. What’s your relationship to queerness in your artistic practice?

When I was younger — around when I graduated theatre school in 2020 — queerness meant identity and identity politics. In many ways, it still does, but I’ve gotten to a place now where I don’t desire to discuss the identity part of queerness. Instead I desire to feel queerness, to see it in all the strange ways the world moves, in all the cracks and crevices of my creativity, of our world. I want to find it in aesthetics and form, rather than just in stories about someone being gay.

In a way, I’m sick and tired of talking about queerness. I’m sick and tired of talking about any of my identities. I used to be so obsessed with locking down the identity, being able to define the identity, reading about the identity, carving it out, being so specific and meticulous in the way it was presented. Now I’m at a point where I just want to experience it and live it. I know what’s queer when I see it and when I feel it, and that’s that.

That’s not really a concrete answer, but I don’t desire to be in a concrete place with my queerness, especially in my work. It just is what it is. It’s entrenched in every line that I say. It’s entrenched in all my actions. It’s entrenched in the aesthetics I deploy. When I book a show, my first thought is about what I’m going to wear on opening night. That’s a queer impulse right there.

I have to ask you about your love for clothes. You are a fashion icon — I don’t make the rules — and I’m wondering, what does clothing offer as another facet of your creative self?

Clothing, in my opinion, tells a story of where you’ve been in life, where you are, and where you want to go. Again, I’m very introverted, or that’s how I see myself. Clothing allows me to go into a space and share my mind with you, and the way I view the world, without having to speak first. It forces me to show up in a space in a certain way when I wear an outfit that is colorful and big and different and queer. It’s such a personal relationship. Many times it can be vain, a little bit of peacocking — in the best way though, a way that I admire in myself.

Again, one of the first questions that I ask myself when I book a gig is, ’What am I going to wear on opening night?’ That’s me showing the world what I understood of that show, what I gained from that show, how it’s changed me. I like wearing things that bring people into the present moment. If you think ‘Wow! He’s wearing that in that way,’ then you are here in the present, and we are here together.

It’s sometimes a stressful act. I go places and I dress in certain ways, and then I feel like, ‘Am I inviting some attention that I don’t want?’ When I’m in the right spaces with the right people, though, it brings a great amount of love and care and appreciation.

I like being known for my style right now in my life. I want to be the Carrie Bradshaw, the Zendaya, of the Canadian theatre community. If you don’t remember any of my performances or any of my work, you’ll remember beautiful gowns, gorgeous gowns.

I think you’ll be remembered for all of the wonderful things you do! Last question: what’s something this summer — doesn’t have to be art-related — that you’re looking forward to?

I’m going on a trip with some of my friends to Montreal. I’m going on a little cottage trip to Port Rowan. I’m going back to Calgary for a wedding. I’m excited to spend time with my friends and family, and deepen those relationships. Nothing work related, just that.

As it should be. It’s been so joyful to chat with you.

I appreciate it so much.