I was slightly worried about watching this play before entering the Spazju Kreattiv theatre. I was half expecting the worst – a play that would pander and moralise without a shred of nuance. I felt something nondescript stir inside my mind… the trepidation I have come to feel whenever anything in our landscape purports to represent women’s voices and women’s concerns, parroting prescribed jargon while being all too far-removed. How awash with relief I felt when I was met with the complete opposite.

Her Say, staged at Spazju Kreattiv between March 11 and 13, was a theatrical production composed of three monologues and an epilogue, directed by Charlotte Grech. Each monologue was written by three separate writers for three specific characters, each easily locatable in different local scenarios and deeply recognisable.

The first monologue featured the actress Monica Attard who interpreted the part of an elderly woman speaking about the change in her experience after leaving her husband, whom she had been married to for decades. Titled Libsa Fuksja, the monologue was written by Simone Spiteri.

Attard inhabited her character with great ease and struck an instant connection with her audience. Through humour and diction common to many a Maltese woman, she managed to seep straight into the hearts and minds of the entire theatre, so much so that, near the end of the monologue, some audience members were even finishing her sentences out loud.

She confronted viewers with the daily realities of ‘being of a certain age’ and all the suppositions this entails. She recounted how the comment, whether real or perceived, of “żmienha għamlitu” (she’s past her prime) was a subjugating force in her long-unexamined life until she decided otherwise.

Michela Farrugia plays the part of a young woman navigating her sexuality.

In the second monologue, Michela Farrugia played the part of a young woman navigating her sexuality in the Maltese landscape, specifically in relation to herself, her romantic partners and her family. Titled Dust, the piece was written by Chiara Hyzler.

I was pleased to find this wasn’t a tale of fire and brimstone – the fact that the character is a lesbian was not portrayed as a problem needing to be managed. Rather, Farrugia’s character recounted a journey of self-discovery, exhilaration and acceptance. Along the way, however, she met a woman who dragged her back into the shadows, for whom Farrugia’s character tolerated self-imposed isolation and secrecy. Like Attard’s character before her, Farrugia’s character learnt to regain control over her life.

A stellar performance

In the third monologue, Angele Galea played the part of a mother. During her interpretation, she considered the challenges mothers face every day, including a not uncommon imbalance of household duties and an extension of her role as mother far beyond the remit of her children. In Insejt Kif Nieħu n-Nifs, Lara Calleja writes a story many Maltese women know all too well.

The short piece confronted audiences with the plethora of conditions that befall the modern mother. In one breath, she went from recognising that the bar is unfairly set too high to making excuses for those who set it and then feeling ashamed at not being as much a beacon of perfection as she thinks she ought to be – untarnished and agreeable and with endless supplies of patience and energy.

Angele Galea plays the part of a mother.

She speaks of her husband at times apologetically, at times with disdain, at others indistinguishably from her children. She goes from commenting about the double standards she faces at work to excusing her husband for being too tired at the end of the day to “help out” at home. This kind of exhausting tug of war is some of what rages in the minds of modern mothers. 

Attard and Galea’s characters seem to suffer from similar culturally imbued impediments, although a generation apart. While Attard’s character removed her shackles at the age of 70, Galea’s character was starting to question her status quo decades earlier. We get the impression that Farrugia’s character, being the youngest of the cohort, would not tolerate a partner with whom chores aren’t shared, for example, although, like her elder counterparts, she too was prone to subduing herself at the service of what she thought was love.

In the epilogue, all three women find themselves in the waiting room of a gynaecologist’s office where Galea’s character has a moment of panic which the others help subside. Women tend to seek out other women when what they need is to be understood. They only needed a few words to be entirely clued in.

That we are only ever a few words or a few actions away from taking control of our lives – becoming ‘the masters of our fates and the captains of our souls’ – is a good reminder at the end of a stellar performance. My only qualm is that the play was not recorded for many more eyes to see.