The story of the Maltese and Gozitan 15th-century revolt against the feudal lord Gonsalvo Monroy had rather slipped my mind. It wasn’t before I sat down to watch Teatru Malta’s Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa that I recalled after so long this famous medieval event.

Ninu Cremona’s classic drama Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa, freely adapted by the New Victorians and Clare Azzopardi for this Teatru Malta production in co-production with Fondazzjoni Ċelebrazzjonijiet Nazzjonali, commemorates the 50th anniversary from the death of the Gozitan literary giant. The play took place on November 18-20, 25 and 26, with its final show this evening at the Ximenes Redoubt, Salina Bay, Naxxar.

Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa, translated by May Butcher in the 1960 Journal of the Faculty of Arts as The Ransom of the Peasants, is a dramatic poem in five acts and a tableau by Cremona written in 1913 and first published in 1936. It is set in the period of the rule of Aragonese nobleman Monroy, who served as Count of Malta between 1421 and 1427 under the kingdom of Alfonso of Aragon.

The story takes viewers 500 years in the past when the then Maltese and Gozi­tan inhabitants suffered greatly under their new owner. They plot to rid themselves of this unjust ruler, barricading Monroy’s wife Costanza in Fort St Angelo, or the Castrum Maris as it was known in the Middle Ages, and deal with King Alfonso to let them buy back their land for 30,000 florins.

Lively and energetic scenes abound.

Teatru Malta’s adaptation is set in two parts, with an interval in between and original music throughout, played live by the New Victorians onstage.

The show featured actors Lee-N Abela, Jacob Piccinino, Alex Weenink, Matthias Camilleri, Sean Briffa, Gianluca Mifsud, Chantelle Micallef Grimaud, Laura Buhagiar, Kay Micallef and Sara Gauci, who played their parts expressively and energetically.

The New Victorians’ musical adaptation is perhaps the play’s most successful feature – a melding of electronic and vocal prowess that made the viewing extremely enjoyable and rather immersive.

The adaptation of the script by Azzopardi is also a great success, paying due homage to Cremona while adding youthfulness to the original eloquence.

The first part of the play started very promisingly. The setting is idyllic and emotionally resonant, introducing us to the farmer Matti (Jacob Piccinino) and his connection to the earth. Bright colours and childlike innocence abound; a playfulness drifts amid the characters as their trials become apparent, though a lack of rain and brutal taxes do not dampen the joyousness surrounding Matti’s daughter’s upcoming wedding.

The story takes viewers 500 years in the past.

As the need to revolt becomes more pronounced, Matti begins to despair. To gather the 30,000 florins needed to take back their land, everyone must give everything they own.

The most striking moment of the play came at the end of this first part when audiences are given a glimpse of what would have been a wedding full of warmth and joy juxtaposed quickly after with the dread and pain of farmers parting with everything they own.

The moment showed with poignancy the difficulty of reconciling principles with happiness – to do the right thing is often painful and disquieting; to do nothing comes with ease.

The script adding youthfulness to the original eloquence

The second part of the play did not strike me as having the balance of the first. Starting off well in the beginning, showing the dissatisfaction of the farmers suffering stagnation, the more dramatic scenes that followed struck me as short and overstimulating.

'Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa' commemorates the 50th anniversary from the death of Ninu Cremona.

Ensuing fight scenes against furbani (pirates) looked and felt too much like something more envisioned for a film than the stage. Sometimes needless acrobatics and short intense scenes felt too cinematic, too crowded. My least favourite scene depicted a fight between Pietru (Sean Briffa) and Peppu (Matthias Camilleri) on a rickety bridge – something I had seen countless times before in every film of a similar setting.

The creativity of the scenes, of which there was plenty, was actually a nice touch; the issue is more so with their oversaturation in the play. These scenes would have perhaps been more effective in smaller doses.

Dun Sidor (Lee-N Abela), much like most of the portrayals of religious figures onstage today across the board, is somewhat of a caricature – the exaggera­tedly hypocritical, out of touch, money-and-doctrine-obsessed tyrant masquerading as a spiritual guide. Perhaps it’s time for directors to move away from these cheap shots at the clergy and add less predictable (and thus boring) guises to such characters.

A sequence during the performance.

As the play drew to a close, thoughts about this land of ours began to form. I thought about what we are doing with this land we now own – this land that is now ours. Overdevelopment comes to mind, and the selling of our passports.

Then onstage came the real daughter of a real farmer recounting the ordeals she and other modern farmers face about the question of their land, perennially under threat. The issue then went from general to specific – the play is about the plight of the modern farmer, we are told; this, here, is the message.

Typically, I would rather have plays speak to me than be told at the end what they are about. The result is, unfortunately, a message too contrived.

This new adaptation of Il-Fidwa tal-Bdiewa is something of a mixed bag, with highs and lows in equal measure. Despite its shortcomings, this proved an interesting and creative expression of a Maltese classic at risk of slipping our minds. I do hope the music is released as an album soon.

The final show is taking place today, November 27, at 7.30pm. For tickets, visit here.