Imagine yourselves back in 1914. You are standing in a hall in the beautiful Palazzo Carafa in Bakery Street, Valletta

The Unione Cattolica di San Giuseppe, forerunner of the APS bank, has just moved out of the building, which later the same year becomes the new premises of the Istituto Italiano Umberto Primo, founded in 1888, one of the many schools financed by the Italian state around the world, that follows the Italian syllabi and system of education.

The Unione Cattolica di San Giuseppe, one of the very first workers’ association in Malta, used to organise leisure and educational activities for its members on the premises.

Since 1912, thanks to its efforts, the Palazzo has become one of the earliest places for the public to watch films, due mainly to the generosity of a businessman, Giovanni Apap, who lent the organisation a projector.  

Theatrical activities also became an important part of the programme of the Umberto Primo school which in its heyday had well over 300 pupils.

Primary school teaching included the Montessori method, which believed in motivating pupils through drama activities.

By the mid-1930s, the enfilade of rooms along the entire façade of the piano nobile of the palace had been interconnected to form the large hall that still exists today, equipped with a stage for theatrical performances.

A rare programme of a prize day held February 2, 1936 shows a mixed programme of entertainment both in Italian and in English that includes the staging of two performances.

Mussolini, who had first become Prime Minister of Italy in 1922, is mentioned in the programme, by means of a tribute entitled: “Al Duce”.

This was the year when the British withdrew the licence of the Istituto di Cultura Italiana, and severely restricted the activities of the Umberto Primo school.

A photograph of the time shows a cultural activity, taken from the stage.  The hall is packed to capacity, and decorated with flags and banners. 

By 1938, the Umberto Primo school had vacated the building as the impending war in Europe loomed closer.

That year, the Palazzo was taken over by the Circolo Gioventù Cattolica, when it moved out of its premises in Old Theatre Street, that had formerly belonged to the newspaper: The Daily Malta Chronicle.

Many prestigious names in politics and in the arts were to emerge from this association, such as Herbert Ganado, George Borg Olivier, Lawrence Gonzi, Vincent Apap, Charles Coleiro and Mario Micallef.

It was patronized by intellectuals such as Dun Karm Psaila. Theatre was an essential activity for the Circolo; in fact, already in 1924, the association’s theatrical company had mounted the boards of the Manoel Theatre for the first time, and many of its members have acknowledged that “the stage was synonymous with Gioventù Cattolica”.

This was mainly thanks to the efforts of the indefatigable Mgr Salv Laspina, who had a passionate love for theatre and cinema. Already in the smaller premises in Old Theatre Street, Laspina used to put up plays and project films.

He had, in fact, built a projector and a radio to show ‘talkies’.  According to Dun Eddie Borg Olivier, “in Palazzo Carafa, Dun Salv found the stage and the hall he had wished for: he found them ready from the Italian school Umberto Primo, and continued to improve them”.

He would even project popular films, such as those of Laurel and Hardy, for British servicemen, and at least in one case, afterwards gave them each a set of rosary beads! 

After the war, with the Royal Opera House destroyed and the Manoel Theatre closed, the stage of the Circolo was practically the only functioning theatre in Valletta.

It was a thriving hub of activity for the Valletta community well into the seventies, and it has been claimed that 80% of Valletta boys and men frequented the Circolo and either watched or participated in its plays while receiving a religious and civic education.

Plays were produced every Sunday, with the younger members sitting in the balcony before the still-existing projection room was built. Following Mgr Laspina, Mr Joe Tonna continued to maintain the Circolo, and its tradition of plays and films, which reached their apex every Christmas. 

Sadly, Palazzo Carafa has remained closed down for a number of years – yet its stage remained intact and in sound condition until earlier this year. The stage itself took up the smaller room at one end of the enfilade, while the rest of the connected rooms were used to seat the audience – the furthest one contained a balcony on which a projection room was built at some point.

The stage, complete with trapdoors and even a prompter’s box, was inclined to the front, in order to create better effect for scenery in perspective, thereby creating an illusion of greater depth to the stage.

The stage builders had started the inclination above a fireplace, in such a way as not to break or damage it in any way. It is recorded that one of the Circolo’s volunteers, Charlie Azzopardi, used to regularly sprinkle the stage with water and make sure it was kept in a good state.

A proscenium arch was created in the dividing wall between the rooms, which at some point, was reputedly decorated by young Vincenzo Apap in the art-deco style fashionable at the time.

Because the stage was not high enough to fly up the scenery, a system of rollers and ropes would wind it around horizontal poles, just like the sails on a ship. Until February this year, some pieces of scenery were still rolled up above the stage, which was in a very good condition.

Many were the possibilities to give it new life: as a fine example of a community theatre, as a community museum, or even simply as a testimony of the extraordinary story of this building, and the changing social needs of the communities that it has served.

Where is the theatre stage now? Gone, broken to pieces under an insensitive axe, without authorization, and mindless of its significance for one of the most deeply formative chapters in Malta’s socio-political and cultural history.