Theatre
Pupu Fil-Baħar
St James Cavalier

Literary adaptation isn’t easy; all the more so when it involves a collection of short stories with an occasional whimsical, macabre or odd twist. How can a group of highly individual plots be unified and presented on stage by a small cast and ensure continuity and cohesion? Clearly, KAST theatre company managed to pull it off very well thanks to Carmel S. Aquilina’s excellent direction of Charles Sammut’s adaptation of six short stories from Alfred Sant’s book Pupu Fil-Baħar held last weekend.

It is one thing to find a set of texts to work with and quite another to come up with a concept which works well enough to make them visually and aurally appealing. The way in which this was done was by using the curious alien travellers in Ulva, one of Dr Sant’s stories, as the unofficial narrators of the rest of the series, as they explored aspects of Maltese culture and observed the idiosyncrasies of the individual and often unique characters. The aliens, played by four dancers from the Dancel Dance Studio – Melvin Monreal, Maria Ellul, Kimmylee Azzopardi and Naomi Falzon, with choreography by Celaine Buhagiar, helped tie the separate scenes together by focusing on one aspect, image or motif from each and examining it with a mixture of awe and innocent child-like inquisitiveness which drew the audience’s attention to things which we would normally take for granted.

Going full circle with the aliens’ arrival and departure back to their home planet of Ulva, the other five scenes presented were Pupu Fil-Baħar, from the eponymously titled collection, Bil-Għali, Blogg, Qassis, and Ġulina. A cast of three actors – Charles Sammut, Antonella Galea Loffreda and Joseph Galea gave an excellent display of what effective character doubling can achieve, playing multiple roles in the scenes, showcasing their versatility. The repression and familial antagonism evident in Qassis were tinged with a hint of the macabre and transformed the youthful Ms Galea Loffreda into a wizened old woman at loggerheads with Charles Sammut’s manipulative decrepit priest, recounted through the tortured dreams of Joseph Galea’s reporter, while Ms Galea Loffreda’s Angela in Ġulina discovers the first stirrings of love towards her new neighbour, much to the disapproval of her well-intentioned but highly conservative parish priest. Ms Galea Loffreda’s versatility in quickly changing from one character to another was excellent.

Mr Sammut was extremely adept at creating very contrasting religious characters with two very different priests in the aforementioned scenes and a pseudo-Indian spiritual gardener, Karim, in Blogg, exploring perversion, typical village life and humour in each of them respectively. The latter was particularly entertaining both in terms of his characterisation and in his successful adaptation of the scene itself, which poked gentle fun at the foibles of the Maltese more educated classes whose pretensions and amorous inclinations get the better of them.

As Karim’s employer, Melanie, played very well by Ms Galea Loffreda, airily sends a private investigator (Joseph Galea) to find out whether her husband is having an affair, and cuckolding both her and his current mistress Ġiulja, the social norms we so dearly love to believe are still intact are stripped back to reveal a much quirkier interpretation of social pretences and relationships.

Joseph Galea interpreted several “observer-commentators” if you will, with his badly congested police inspector in Pupu Fil-Baħar, the bemused private investigator in Blogg, the troubled reporter in Qassis and the hilariously funny, camp village notary in Bil-Għali. The latter piece worked very well with Mr Sammut as the distraught member of the local council, who is wracked by guilt at the thought that his decision to ignore one of his local supporters’ requests for a sleeping policeman resulted in her death. Exposing the often humorous interactions of the typical Maltese in a modern setting, the scene followed Pupu Fil-Baħar and complimented it in much the same way that subsequent pieces did – by focusing on character stereotypes and satirising them.

The three actors’ dynamic was very evident in the slick way their performances brought their characters to life on stage. However, all of this would not have worked so well had it not been for the clever use of lighting and sound together with the minimal set, under Carmel Aquilina’s observant eye – whose attention to detail and inventive textual interpretation was interesting and fresh without relying on gimmicks.

Pupu Fil-Baħar was certainly a highly enjoyable performance worth watching.