Lupu/Nagħġa – the latest play written and directed by Simone Spiteri – is a story told in reverse about a woman facing a moral dilemma, exacerbated by the difficulties and frustrations of everyday existence.

Produced by Teatru Malta in collaboration with Dù Theatre, the play was staged between January 27 and February 5, with its final show scheduled for this evening.

Significantly, the play is a Teatru Malta commission for the European Theatre Convention as part of their Pipelines project in collaboration with Du’ Theatre.

In this project, commissioned theatrical productions are based on the stories respective countries have to tell about the fuel – whether oil, natural gas or what have you – keeping the lights running and their economies afloat.

Unsurprisingly, these stories revolve around power, corruption, money and activism.

Lupu/Nagħġa stands as a successor to Spiteri’s acclaimed Repubblika Immakulata (2019). Each is a sharp, overt critique of the sullied underbelly of our Mediterranean home, so overt (and sullied) in Lupu/Nagħġa’s case that the play begins and ends “fuq il-loki” (on the crapper).

The play is a crystallisation of the collective trauma of recent years, stemming from the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and its Electrogas connection, but also from the neoliberalism in hyperdrive that somehow put everything about our collective and individual identity into question.

It is also a reproach of the national tendency to rationalise ourselves out of accountability, exonerating each other from taking any meaningful action, sputtering u ijja (whatever) till kingdom come.

Even with our heads in the sand, however, the sense that something is wrong is hard to miss, but easy enough to placate unless we are faced with the matter head on. Such is what happens to the play’s lead character.

She finds herself entangled in a Gordian Knot on account of a 10-minute absence from a work meeting, during which an important report at her government job got approved. After her maternity leave came to an end, she was asked to sign the document despite her absence, which she considers unethical.

She combats perceived intimidation tactics while also being stressed out of her mind, tending to her child and family in the block of flats where they live (it is no surprise that motherhood is a thematic undercurrent in this play given how mothers are society’s shock absorbers).

All the while, her non-binary neighbour campaigns to get their streetlight fixed (the affluent and out of touch architect in the penthouse can only say it is out of his remit). At this point, it’s no longer about the streetlight for the non-binary neighbour but the principle, they say (incidentally, the singular ‘they’ translated to ‘huma’ in Maltese struck me as a bit off, perhaps because it was the first time I ever heard it in use).

I was surprised at how numb I felt when leaving the theatre

Other characters pepper the plot, including an influencer turned party lackey, a prostitute and the lead character’s feeble-minded mother. Each is intentionally exaggerated, caricaturised; Spiteri seems to make archetypes out of them. There is nothing subtle about them; with archetypes, what you see is what you get.

Together they form what she calls a “chorus” – a nameless, faceless mass using hedonism as an escape and an abdication of responsibility. 

The play features an excellent cohort of actors, each meandering a set expertly designed by Adrian Mamo. Moritz Zavan Stoeckle turned the lights into a character in their own right.

I was surprised at how numb I felt when leaving the theatre. Perhaps I have reached some level of saturation with regards to the ceaseless instances of corruption (macro and micro) burning holes into my consciousness (working in a newsroom does exacerbate matters somewhat). Perhaps some of the numbness is a reaction to our collective impotence.

Spiteri’s script comes across as light and natural – real in a very tangible sense, though fitting all too neatly in what is becoming a predictable mould. Anti-corruption/Maltese social commentary plays might be becoming a bit repetitive, and perhaps the numbness I felt when leaving the theatre is also a reaction to the impotence I have come to cynically perceive in this and all such artistic projects prodding at our unchanging political situation.

This is not to say that this was not a successful play; the numbness that set in after I left the theatre stuck with me for the rest of the evening. An unsuccessful play would have evaporated without a trace.

The best many of us can hope for in daily life is a trip to the office vending machine to feel a sense of agency. We’re so tired from the endless everyday battles consuming our lives that we don’t have the strength or will to tackle anything larger. But Lupu/Nagħġa doesn’t seem to have the patience for such excuses.

Joining the chorus is easy enough – better a satisfied pig than a dissatisfied Socrates – but the consequence of inaction is always real, despite how much they tell us that “kollox għat-taparsi” (it’s all make-believe).

The final showing of Lupu/Nagħġa is taking place today, February 5 at Valletta Campus Theatre at 7.30pm.