'Discrimination' against Maltese playwrights

Paul Xuereb's assertion that "Maltese theatre breathes deeply, as we can all see. Maltese theatre is alive and kicking" (The Sunday Times, June 1, p. 35) is somewhat confusing, unless "Maltese theatre" is a misnomer. Not all of us can see that it is "alive and kicking". There are some indications that it is alive but "being kicked".

The Drama Commission of the Akkademja tal-Malti, whose interest is the protection of the Maltese writer as part of its mission to safeguard, develop and promote the Maltese language in all social spheres, defines "Maltese theatre" (as distinct from "theatre in Malta") in terms of original Maltese plays.

And as such it cannot help noticing that there is some discrimination against Maltese authors. In fact very few of them ever make it to the Manoel Theatre. The Manoel's new "policy of producing a couple of plays by Maltese authors each season" sounds demeaning since Maltese authors should have more production space in what is normally considered to be the national theatre.

The Akkademja, committed to defend the cultural rights of the Maltese writer, has noticed that the administration of this new policy has laid tons of problems to the chosen playwright. One can ask Oreste Calleja about these problems. The Akkademja demands that the Maltese author be treated decently by the Manoel which is funded from the public coffer, and asks the authorities to urgently look into the matter.

Paul Xuereb writes:

I was expecting Charles Briffa, as general editor of PIN's Kullana Kulturali, to apologise for the shocking inclusion in Azzopardi's book of several unacknowledged and unlicensed illustrations. Briffa is responsible to PIN, his publishers, for this abuse of copyright, and I trust that they will have a word with him about this remissness as well as proffer the apology neither he nor Azzopardi has given.

PIN should remember that the party now in government, whose publishers they are, is striving hard to make copyright observance in this country the rule, rather than the exception.

As for what he says about the Maltese theatre, it is clear that he knows very little about the matter. He certainly seems to know very little about the great scarceness of good or even fairly good plays in Maltese, and if he cannot admit that a good many of our theatre groups enjoy, and are good at, performing plays in English, preferring them to poor plays in their own language, then he lives on a different dimension from ours.

I would like to see good Maltese plays performed much more than Briffa, who is an academic and not a theatre man as I have been all my life, and I would greatly like to see new playwrights writing in our language come to our notice.