Unifaun Theatre has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for the production of a bilingual book documenting its history. The book will feature Unifaun artistic director and founder Adrian Buckle’s take on each production the company undertook since it came on to the scene in 2005. 

The book will also give an account of the censorship battle Unifaun fought in court and display photos and reviews on each play by Malta’s leading photographers and reviewers, as well as essays on theatre making and the philosophy of Unifaun by both local and foreign practitioners.

The early years of the company saw productions by modern playwrights, mostly British, but still unknown to Malta, which shook the system, culminating in the scrapping of theatre censorship laws.

With productions like The Pillowman, Equus and Two, the company set its standard over the theatre scene. With productions like Mercury Fur, Paul, Blasted, Some Explicit Polaroids and, most of all, Stitching, Unifaun led the fight against theatre censorship, even fighting in court and battling out the intention in the European Court where it emerged victorious, leading to the removal of the Stage Classification Board in Malta.

However, Unifaun did not stop there. With productions like The Price of One and Game, it commissioned professional West End playwrights to write for Malta. Productions like The Acrobat, Olly’s Prison and Macbeth showed that Maltese theatre is of the same standard as that which foreign professionals are used to and with Tebut Isfar, Is-Surmast and Il-Ħajja Sigrieta Tan-Nanna Ġenoveffa, the company brought Maltese theatre back to the mainstream.

The crowdfunding exercise is being carried out on ZAAR at https://zaar.com.mt/projects/unifaun-2021/.