The satire Ġiraffa Ħarbet minn Kastilja, written by the playwright Aleks Farrugia and directed by Daniel Azzopardi, pokes at the many holes in the fabric of Maltese society through humour and absurdity. Indeed, the absurd is the right tool with which to contend with the sordid aspects of our local lives, whether parochial, nefarious or cringy.

Currently showing at Spazju Kreattiv Theatre, Ġiraffa is a tale of a Maltese prime minister (Peter Galea) seeking glory by attempting to retrieve Grandmaster Jean de Valette’s stolen dagger from the French – a topic of contention that crops up every so often, stirring heated ‘debate’ across social media until the next thing comes along to distract us.

Opening in the prime minister’s office, the satire shows a politician of characteristic sleaze, happy to call his assistant (Marjann Attard) ‘Spice’. She doesn’t stand for this much, however, despite her adulation of him – a nod to our propensity to deify our local leaders.

At one point, after likening the Maltese people to an infant, “li tibki sakemm jagħtuha ż-żejża” (who cries till it is pacified), the prime minister turned to the audience asking if we knew what item he is waiting for so eagerly. I remember defaulting to my usual reaction to interactive theatre, namely dodging the actor’s gaze so I am left alone. “Tafu x’qed nistenna?” (do you know what I’m waiting for), he asked, expecting one of us to mention the dagger. “Iż-żejża” was one fellow’s reply, much to everyone’s amusement.

As the prime minister fantasised about being hailed a hero upon the dagger’s return, the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Anthony Ellul) fumbles into the office with some troubling news. Instead of the revered dagger, he has returned with a giraffe, which he placed in the Castille Palace yard.

Journalists played by Charlotte Formosa, Miguel Formosa and Jacob Piccinino during a press conference with the prime minister (Galea, centre) and the police commissioner (Schembri, right).

The exasperated prime minister, credibly portrayed by Galea, goes on to claim this farcical ‘gift’ an insult, even if the foreign minister accepted it with thanks – a clear reference to our insecurity in the face of other European countries despite our pretentions of grandeur (“aħna mhux l-aqwa fl-Ewropa… aħna l-Ewropa!”)

Soon the phone rings with news of the giraffe’s escape and subsequent rampage across Valletta. The assistant relays the tragic news to an ever-despairing prime minister, his favour falling with the giraffe’s every stroke.

They receive reports of simultaneous sightings across the island, testament to how truth tends to distort and inflate as it disfigures in a game of Chinese Whispers.

The police commissioner (Karl Schembri) is called to quell the situation. He responds to his call dutifully, saying blatantly that the corps is there to serve the prime minster. When he returns with news that the giraffe is nowhere to be found, the prime minister puts his best rhetoric to work and decides to spin the giraffe into a fabrication.

Truth tends to distort and inflate as it disfigures in a game of Chinese Whispers

A press conference ensues. One journalist (Charlotte Formosa) is vociferously in favour of the prime minister, as shown by a horn she wields; another (Miguel Formosa) is militantly against him, as shown by the earmuffs he wears; and another (Jacob Piccinino) is purportedly independent, as shown by his megaphone. The media, after all, have a role too in the game of Chinese Whispers.

It is unfortunate that the play at times resorted to spoon-feeding itself to us, the presentation of the journalists being a case in point. One could deduce with rela­tive ease who is who and their respective allegiances, not least because the symbols they wear are quite transparent. The militant journalist’s earmuffs were pointed out extensively, for example, much like the police commissioner’s declaration of blind loyalty earlier, as if to drive the point home.

The frequent occasions of this throughout the play weakened the satire at times.

At last, after all is said and done and rhetoric prevails, the giraffe (voiced by Antonella Axisa) makes an appearance… She appears as an animation, French accent and all, on some screens across the theatre, cooing as though to say ‘is anyone there? I’m still here, you know’. That brief moment, I feel, would have been an appropriate ending for the play – something as though to say a tree falls in the forest no matter what words we twist about it. Alas, this was not the case.

The giraffe… voiced by Antonella Axisa.

Instead, the giraffe carried on with a long point of view account on the events that befell her, all perhaps to mention Eugène Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros in anticipation of the final act, where the independent journalist meets her and mistakes her for a rhinoceros to prolong the point about distortion of truth and the power of meaning even further.

These last two acts, I feel, were entirely needless, and made the play, which was sound up to the point when the giraffe was turned from symbol to character, fall off the tracks.

Despite these last two acts, Ġiraffa Ħarbet minn Kastilja proves itself an effective satire. It gives us a harsh look at ourselves and our thwarted relationship with truth, the prevalence of rhetoric and misplaced allegiances and the failings of traditional media. Hopefully we shall learn someday to be more like that fellow who answered the prime minister’s question with impish subversion.

Ġiraffa Ħarbet minn Kastilja has its final run at Spazju Kreattiv Theatre today.