Mind your language! or the purity of theatre

In Malta there are some 15 active drama companies. Some produce plays in the local language; others specialise in English plays or, rather, plays in English. (There are countries where English is seen as a plague inflicted on the natives; in others it is considered a blessing the natives have come to possess more sonorously than the colonisers themselves.)

Although not quite as stretched as one would like it to be, the local dramatic repertoire is quite varied and each drama ensemble revels in its own peculiar identity. The only two common factors binding the companies are their readiness to double their output at the Manoel Theatre given the opportunity (for which read availability of dates) and their sheer reluctance to perform works penned by Maltese authors.

It might come as a surprise to learn, for example, that practically no private company has ever seen it fit to produce a Francis Ebejer play! It is usually left to some government-subsidised committee, opting to play safe, that manipulates the Department of Culture into occasionally staging an Ebejer play.

The department then duly carts a respectable crowd to the venue while, a week later, the critics would laud the dramatic event! But sadly, contrary to the fiction surrounding the Ebejer myth, since the author's sudden demise, nobody seems motivated, or keen, to want to revive the master!

Could it be that what they taught us at college was faulty? And what the good teachers told us to admire (and if current texts are an indication, they are still saying to this day) was generally so false, prettified and moralistic that what might have appeared to be acceptable then, was later discovered to be coated over?

Or perhaps it is that the teachers themselves, as with most members of the local intelligentsia, have never attended a live Ebejer play in their lives!

However, if say tomorrow a benefactor were to materialise with a proposal and a healthy budget to stage an Ebejer, he would be accepted without hesitation and there certainly would be no shortage of companies and directors ready and willing and sprouting overnight motivation!

Nobody ever seems to be able to read plays written in Maltese! Even those whom one assumes have a close affinity with the stage might, at best, peruse a couple of pages before giving it up as a bad chore.

It is incredible how the majority of drama officers in most of the local companies have never actually read a full play in Maltese! Naturally technical reports are unheard of and people who can go through a script conference suggesting cuts, amendments and re-writings are alien to the local scene.

For sheer skimpy stuff try consulting the Pinna Francis Ebejer competition reports. My Saturday laundry list is far more thorough and informative. In a related article to your sister paper entitled: Maltese Playwrights for Tomorrow, November 5, 1993, I wrote: "...the writers, many of whom I instigated to take part, would certainly have appreciated a couple of telegraphic comments on their entry rather than an all-too-brief generic report..." Of course, nothing has changed.

Two audiences

There is undoubtedly a different audience for plays in English and for plays in the vernacular. Those who frequent both might be counted on the fingers of Mimi's frozen tiny palm!

The aspirations and backgrounds of the two distinctive crowds differ considerably. In general, plays in English have longer runs and almost double the audiences. There has been the occasional exception of course, but such a unique instance not only proves the rule, but seems destined to relegate the ensuing Maltese productions to suffer horribly at the box office!

An allied disturbing factor, which I hope also would be hotly debated, is my impression that the better brand of local thespian would opt for an English script if given the choice.

Kumpanija Nazzjonali tad-Drama

The middle aged theatergoer will remember the Kumpanija Nazzjonali tad-Drama (KND), the brainchild of the Manoel Theatre Academy of Dramatic Art (MTADA). When it was formed, in 1985, there were only four drama companies servicing the Manoel Theatre and nepotism reigned supreme.

MTADA had the fullest faith in the training and ability of its final students due to the rigours and discipline of its courses. Amid great opposition, it presented works by Anthony Portelli, Stephen Florian and Guzè Chetcuti.

The lead roles were aimed for the freshly motivated MTADA graduates, who in those days had problems finding work.

Today the situation is vastly different. With an array of stage, television and film work available, theatre companies are finding it difficult to cast and mount their plays.

The short-lived KND must surely have been the last of its kind! Even the word nazzjonali has fallen into the doldrums with the current buzzwords reflecting the trend of the arts towards globalisation and the transcultural medium.

In fact, the few existing national drama companies are the result of some historic link with their illustrious founder; Moscow Arts' Theatre, Stanislawski; Comedie Francais, Molière; Berliner Ensemble, Brecht; etc. Surely these national theatres are intended to preserve cultural heritages more or less intact rather than creating new works!

There exists also this misconceived perception that national companies perform solely works by native writers! A cursory look at the complicated history of British theatre, which virtually ended up with two national theatres, when attempts to unite the Royal Shakespeare Company with the National failed and the RSC withdrew, amply proves this fallacy.

Kenneth Tynan, the legendary first artistic director of the National Theatre, working in close cahoots with Laurence Olivier, clearly spelled out its policy: A spectrum of world drama!

Moreover, in today's world of theatre, the pursuit of excellence is certainly not synonymous with these nationalistic monoliths! Companies like the Almeida, Cheek by Jowl in the UK and the theatres of Avignon, and Jan Michel Pesanti, to mention a couple of examples, are more artistically quoted and in demand than their respective nationals!

The early Sixties saw a radical change of theatre aesthetics when the repertoire was wholly transformed by taking the course of individualistic theatrical approaches. Artistic prestige is nowadays measured by the diversity and quality of the various creative groups in constant operation.

The national flagship has been superseded by the more economically feasible and creative troupes who have captured the attention of the international markets. In my book, national companies belong to the past because we want to liberate future generations from thinking that one may only make it theatrically on the back of some governmental institution.

As an avid, almost obsessive, believer in the preparation and training of students in the performing arts I cannot stress enough the importance of the right motivation. Why can't we understand that the natural solution lies in the hands of the technically trained, motivated actor, director, musician, and artist?

They would automatically open all the doors which we are now mistaking for solid walls! Working individually, or in groups, they would breath new life into schools, the community, tourism, the media; the right training coupled with the right motivation would push the theatre-people into performing, the musicians into playing and the other artists into creating works - and not just for whistling their way to the banks!

Oldest Baroque public theatre

I used to be veritably baffled by well-meaning colleagues who pretend that the new breakthrough in drama writing has to come from the national theatre. Even when it is common knowledge that the Manoel is being projected internationally as the oldest Baroque public theatre in Europe.

One would have thought that the strong presence of a distinctive proscenium arch with parterres on the sides would be symbolically adequate to deter such expectations, but apparently I was wrong!

Dominic Dromgoole in his book The Full Room: an A-Z of contemporary playwriting offers this explanation when referring to certain critics and administrators whose vision of theatre, formed in the literary oeuvres of the Fifties and Sixties has never been allowed to broaden "...this is where the real problem lies. It's fear. Fear of the bold, the new, the original, fear of the brave. If anything shows a spark of a future, that draws out their greatest venom.

"You would have thought that doing the same circuit for 30 years induces a desperate thirst for the new. But quite the opposite: it induces a complete psychological dependence on what has gone before, a need for the reassurance of the previous.

"They like everything contained in small concealed boxes, all pre-stamped by them. ...if ever a writer, a director, or a theatre tries to do something new, they scream and stamp their feet as if their sanity depends on it not happening. Which it probably does."

(To be concluded)