Verġni sagri, demonji u boloħ għal Alla

by Mario Azzopardi

published by Horizons

Mario Azzopardi is as well known for his long career as a distinguished theatre director and designer as for the volumes of poetry he has published since the late 1960s.

This new work on the theatre – Verġni Sagri, Demonji u Boloħ għal Alla: Kitbiet dwar it-Teatralità Reliġjuża – differs greatly from those he has published in the past. It is about the influence of religion and of religious people on theatre-making and theatre-makers, with the author limiting himself to Christianity almost entirely.

The various, deeply thought out and researched essays in the book show how religion has possibly affected theatre makers negatively, and also how a good many religious people, mystics above all, have allowed religious ideas to shape the style of their lives.

Azzopardi’s deep interest in religion has, of course, been obvious in his poetry. His rebelliousness against orthodox Catholicism often goes side by side with his hidden yearning to find the truth in this religion.

Early on, he makes the point that all of us in our daily lives enact ourselves “in tune with what [we] dream”.

One of the examples he gives is of Pope Francis, who transmits religious and political signals all the time through his public behaviour, reminding us that he is typical of the Society of Jesus to which he belongs in using theatre as a form of religious teaching, while the pope’s favourite saint, Francis of Assisi, led a life which enacted a practical imitation of Christ.

The chapters in the book study a variety of subjects: mysticism and flagellation, St Catherine of Siena, so-called Holy Fools through the ages, the role of religion in the works of Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Milton and Dante, and sexist hostility of religious people towards women on the stage in the early Christian era, and especially from the 16th to the 20th century.

Azzopardi tries to show again and again the physical and vocal behaviour of people in a state of hallucination and ecstasy, and the tendency of religious groups to create ritual.

His long chapter “Alla sessist u l-kontaminazzjoni oxxena” shows how early theologians condemned actors and acting in general, with attacks on female performers coming later.

As late as the 16th century and the Council of Trent, theatre was often regarded as a tool of moral corruption, and the influential Cardinal Carlo Borromeo launched a violent attack on theatre-making. The appearance in Italy of the first professional female performers at this time may have sharpened Borromeo’s acerbity.

For centuries following the Council of Trent, actors were forbidden to perform persons in religion in Catholic regions, but not, say, in England (remember Friar Laurence and Isabella in Shakespeare), so when Molière satirised religious hypocrisy in Tartuffe he made sure he did not depict the title character overtly as a priest even if his audience realised his intention.

Many readers will be drawn to the chapter on mysticism, diabolical temptation and the many questionable attempts to fight temptation through flagellation.

How religion has possibly affected theatre makers negatively

He is drawn to the figure of the Spanish mystic St John of the Cross, his frequent struggles with temptation and his converting the priories he headed into sometimes macabre sites, but he also reminds us that even the Protestants fought devilish wiles in their lives and in their books.

Holy Fools, we are told, are persons whose religious enthusiasm leads them to live most unconventionally, sometimes appearing naked in public, trying to shock others into perceiving their own indifference. Azzopardi says that Holy Fools have been prominent for centuries in Russia, and considers that the Pussy Riot invasion of a Moscow cathedral in 2012 was a particularly striking example of this kind of behaviour.

In this same chapter, Azzopardi discusses two theatre-makers, Dario Fo and Antonio Benigni, whose work has strong elements of Holy Fool behaviour, stressing especially Benigni’s celebrated film La vita è bella (1997) and one of Fo’s best-known plays, Mistero buffo, but also a work less known but very important, Lu santu jullare Francesco, in which Francis of Assisi is presented as a giullare, a kind of jester, who with his irony condemns warfare and all violence.

The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, depicts a mystic whose ecstasies were sometimes close to erotic experiences. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Perhaps the most remarkable chapter is the one about St Catherine of Siena, whose mysticism reached extraordinary heights and who, with other holy virgins of the time, had a great devotion to the relic of the so-called prepuce of Christ. Catherine was one of those mystics whose ecstasies were sometimes close to erotic experiences. Bernini’s famous statue of St Teresa of Avila in Rome clearly depicts this type of mystical/erotic experience.

As a man of the theatre, Azzopardi takes particular pleasure in exploring Shake­speare’s religious and spiritual personality. He discusses the controversy regarding whether Shakespeare was an Anglican or a Catholic, coming down in favour of the latter, and writes interestingly on Macbeth, Hamlet, and Measure for Measure.

His comments on the novice nun Isabella (Measure for Measure) and on Friar Laurence (Romeo and Juliet) are that both of them are shown to be moral centres in the two plays even if (Azzopardi does not says this) modern stage directors sometimes depict the friar as a meddling semi-buffoon who does more harm than good.

Perhaps even more interesting are Azzopardi’s comments on the Sonnets, perhaps his greatest achievement in the field of pure poetry, especially on the guilt feelings about his sinfulness that the poet sometimes expresses.

I do not have the space to discuss the author’s comments on John Milton, Dante Alighieri, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and St John Bosco and his theatre for youngsters on the fringes of society, but I would urge readers not to neglect them.

As an appendix, Azzopardi gives us a short text, partly in the style of a popular ballad, he has written about a historical figure, a French Jesuit who in 1731 was accused of having seduced a young woman. This shocking case, which ended with the Jesuit’s complete acquittal, is a disturbing forerunner of the many cases of sexual abuse of minors by ecclesiastics in our own time.

I wish the publisher had insisted on captions for the book’s handsome black-and-white illustrations, and on a good analytical subject index, or at least a name index. Both are much needed.

I recommend this volume to readers seriously interested in theatre, literature and the history of Christianity.