Il-Qfil u l-Ħelsien Skont Manwel Dimech, produced by Teatru Malta in co-production with FĊN, recounts the story of Manwel Dimech on the centenary of his death. At once reviled and revered, the figure of Dimech in the context of Maltese history may not be as yet entirely understood. Teatru Malta’s rendition, staged within the Old Royal Military Prison in Corradino, purports to be an attempt to tell Dimech’s story through his own eyes.

Director and scriptwriter Victor Jacono and composer and musical director Kris Spiteri have melded script and sound into a seamless and well-balanced production. Jacono’s script is an eloquent homage incorporating some of Dimech’s own writings, translated with great skill by a very capable cast of actors. Spiteri’s compositions and musical direction, produced by Matthew James Borg, are both versatile and memorable. 

Being a site-specific production within the Old Prison is one of the strongest elements of the musical. Audiences are steered along its corridors on a journey across the four major phases of Dimech’s life: his adolescence; his time behind bars; his public life; and his eventual exile to Egypt. Adrian Mamo’s production design allowed the play to unfold across different planes and axes, making exceptional use of the voluminous spaces.

Manwel Dimech, played by Joseph Zammit

The musical opens with a song contextualising the culture of servile obedience within which Dimech (Joseph Zammit) and his fellow Maltese were born – Kulħadd f’Postu (Each in their place). Soon thereafter we encounter Dimech as a young man speaking with his mother (Debbie Scerri) following one of his many stints in prison. This scene serves to introduce the audience to Dimech’s demons; his frustration and anger are crystallised poignantly when he laments: “Jien ma nafx min jien” (I do not know who I am).

What follows is the unfolding of Dimech’s darkest hour. He meets one day with his friend known as is-Sinċier (Karl Cassar). At the time, Dimech was 17 years old. The two are approached by Pawlu Genuis (Jonathan Mohnani) to whom Dimech owes money. After Dimech pays up, Genuis demands more and things get heated. Dimech attacks Genuis with a straight razor and wounds him gravely. Genuis names the two as his attackers when the police arrive and they are soon apprehended.

Dimech’s wife Virginia, played by Bettina Paris.

Historically we know the two were sentenced before the courts the following day. Is-Sinċier, being 25 years old, was sentenced to death by hanging. Dimech was sentenced to 20 years in prison with hard labour, of which he served 13. The desolate conditions he encountered spurred him to direct his anger and energy to improving his education, which led him upon his release to mobilise a group of like-minded individuals into an enlightenment movement called Ix-Xirka tal-Imdawwlin.

Being a site-specific production is one of the strongest elements of the musical

This marks the beginning of Dimech’s public life. We are entreated to a speech in which he says the famous lines “Alla ma ħalaqx ’il-bniedem għad-dlam” (God did not create human beings to reside in darkness) (this was historically written in 1913 in the newspaper Il-Bandiera tal-Maltin which Dimech founded). 

Dimech’s public life leads him eventually to be exiled to Egypt where he extinguished his last days in concentration camps. We hear the character of Salvu Astarita (Marco Calleja) read from a letter by Juann Mamo to Dimech’s wife Virginia (Bettina Paris) that this ill-fated figure died “mherri fil-ħmieġ tiegħu stess” (ridden in his own filth).

I left the venue with Zammit’s rendition of X’Jibqa’ taking shape as an earworm in my head, enthralled by the setting of the prison I had just walked through and contending with a somewhat ambivalent feeling of just having watched a show characterised by heroes and villains. 

It would be ludicrous to expect the full extent of the nuances of Dimech’s life and thought to be portrayed onstage, or even to expect the musical to depict his life in historically accurate detail from start to finish. That said, I would have wished to emerge from the venue with more insight into some of the more specific aspects of his ideological framework.

I felt the emphasis was starkly on the need for education as a tool for liberation and how, conversely, the ruling powers of Church and colonial government set about vilifying this noble aim, but few other aspects of Dimech’s thought were explored, most notably his efforts for the emancipation of the working-classes specifically, which he extended to the nation as a whole (socialism and nationalism were compatible ideologies in Dimech’s philosophy).

It would be unfair to say that there was no instance of this in the musical, but perhaps the portrayal of Dimech would have been more well-rounded if this were presented more directly. 

While the cast showed exceptional skill and enormous talent, Zammit’s rendition truly stands out. To say that the musical was a truly memorable experience would be an understatement. I look forward to the next exceptional production Teatru Malta has in store. 

The final show will take place tomorrow, December 13. Il-Qfil u l-Ħelsien Skont Manwel Dimech was produced by Teatru Malta in co-production with FĊN.