Bwani, which was recently put up at St James Cavalier, Valletta, is one of a handful of plays by Francis Ebejer being performed to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his death. Bwani was written as a radioplay in the early 1950s, and had considerable success with what was then a large audience for radio drama.
Following Ebejer’s stage triumphs, with plays like Menz and Il-Ħadd fuq il-Bejt, to mention but a few, he showed himself willing to see his best radioplays performed on stage: works like Is-Sejħa ta’ Sarid and Bwani.
What he did not do, however, was to adapt them thoroughly for the theatre, and so perceptive audiences of the Theatrencore production (directed by Tyrone Grima) of Bwani will have been struck by the play’s wordiness, its reliance on phone conversations, and on lengthy readings from the book around which the play centres.
Grima, his set designer (Adrian Mamo) and light designer (Chris Gatt) have, however, done much to give the piece viability as a stage work. The set design creates an enclosed, not quite claustrophobic atmosphere to parallel the script’s insistence that in a way all the action is taking place in the mind of Marċell (Stefan Farrugia).
Marċell is a brilliant author whose first novel, written 21 years before, frighteningly mirrors his early discarding of Klara (Mariella Aquilina Muscat), the woman whom he truly loved, and his selfish treatment of the woman he actually married. This wife died after bearing him a son, Victor (Jacob Piccinino), and Marċell’s devoted fathering of the boy led to a frighteningly close bond between the two, a bond revealed early in the play as being incestuous.
Marċell’s strong intention to marry Klara powerfully brings out Victor’s morbid sexuality. The script shows the parallel between Victor’s feeling for his father and his deadly hatred for Klara whom he actually threatens to kill.
This is also reflected in Marċell’s tale of Bwani, an African man, whose love for a woman dies when he meets a boy whom he becomes strongly attached to. Klara is made to realise this and so, out of her unselfish love for Marċell, decides to call off the marriage and go back to her native Australia.
Though he has never read his father’s Bwani, Victor feels a mysterious pull to Africa to do health care. It is there that the plot comes to a head, tragically mirroring what happens in the book. Back in Malta, Marċell is stricken by disease and becomes blind, but is tended by Klara who has come back to Malta and has married him.
The two realise that Victor’s stabbing to death by the young African who was obsessed by him took place on the day of their marriage. Now Marċell is sure that it was he and his book that had mysteriously brought about this tragedy, and blames himself for having given up on God and prayer for so many years.
Ebejer had a strong Catholic faith, and in this play he may be voicing through Marċell his guilt over some aspects of his own personal life. If, as I suspect, Marċell in some ways reflects Ebejer himself, I wonder if the tragic death of his son Francis, born of Ebejer’s failed marriage, in 1970 (long after Bwani was written) and which produced his most bitter play (never revived) Vumbarala Zungare made his old play Bwani take a new frightening shape in his heart and mind.
I imagine that Farrugia was cast as Marċell not just for his ability, but also because his tall, handsome figure resembles Ebejer’s. Marċell is probably much easier to interpret on radio than on the stage, for the theatre requires much more than the clever use of voice. Farrugia does convey Marċell’s self-centredness. His love for Victor and for Klara seem to express not a great desire to give but a strong need to complete himself.
In the early scenes, save in his outburst with Victor, he can sound like too much of a cold fish, but this makes Klara’s doubts about him more understandable.
In the play’s later scenes, Marċell’s gradual physical collapse came out well, and it was only when Marcell confesses his guilt about his religious indifference for many years that I felt Farrugia just scratched the surface.
Some of the actors throughout the performance seemed to forget that unless they successfully projected their voice, what they say may not be perfectly comprehensible
As Victor, Piccinino gives a bravura performance, physically and vocally. Grima makes him go barefoot for a number of scenes, and in one wrought scene with Marċell, Victor is not only barefoot but clenches his toes even when he walks, giving the impression that emotionally he has not gone beyond his early childhood.
His strong feelings of love and hatred dominate the performance, and he skilfully modulates from hatred for Klara into a touching appreciation of what she might have been to him had she been his mother.
Aquilina Muscat’s Klara, cautiously but greatly in love with Marċell, skilfully explored the character’s changing moods and was very sensitive in her later scenes with Victor.
Victor’s buddy Charles is not a subtle character, but Sean Briffa made him into the kind of likeable, fun-loving character who is ready to forgive his friends’ faults.
Grima’s only serious directorial fault was to forget that he had an audience on four sides of the acting area. The audience seated on the side where an important prop (a sofa) is placed right at the edge of the acting area must have been missing much of the action.
I myself, seated directly in line with the sofa’s profile, had to make do with actors seated in profile on the sofa with little possibility of seeing facial expressions.
Again, from my seat I could not see Victor at all as he lay in a corner during his important scene with Klara.
Finally, some of the actors throughout the performance seemed to forget that unless they successfully projected their voice, what they say may not be perfectly comprehensible to those seated directly behind them.
It is a pity that the long experience of many productions in this round theatre has failed to teach all directors some important lessons. We still have to see every performer have a complete mastery of voice production.
Apart from this, Grima has succeeded in reducing the play’s flaws as a work for the stage, and for this reason it was an interesting commemoration of the Ebejer anniversary.