The Manoel Theatre and the vernacular

The Manoel Theatre is a state-funded cultural institution that receives about Lm150,000 annually to run its calendar of events. The Manoel hires out the theatre, almost every weekend, receives further funds from sponsors, including national corporate bodies, runs a restaurant, a cafeteria and a souvenir shop on a commercial basis and receives levies from companies that go beyond a certain margin of profit. The Manoel also receives additional money to pay its staff. It is clear, therefore, that as a public entity, the Manoel should be fully accountable to the Maltese people.

It would greatly benefit readers of this paper if Dr Paul Xuereb focused on points that interest the Akkademja tal-Malti and the public, rather than take a reactive position to defend the way that dramatic activity at the Manoel has been conducted for so many years. In his reply to my article (The Sunday Times, June 22), Dr Xuereb avoided to answer, again, very important questions.

While arguing again, for the umpteenth time, that "you cannot make people do such a thing if they don't feel like it" in respect of Maltese theatre, he refuses to explain, once and for all, why the Manoel Theatre did not continue to run the Manoel Theatre Academy of Dramatic Art (MTADA), which also covered script-writing programmes.

Nor are we given account as to why the Manoel Theatre prefers to fund heavily obscure English drama instead of commissioning plays in Maltese, or why it has refused an additional government funding of Lm5,000 to present a Maltese award-winning play.

We are not given any explanation as to why the Manoel has taken no heed of proposals made by a group of experts towards the development of drama reflecting local and Mediterranean realities, which development should lead to the creation of a national drama company, or even companies.

MTADA was unceremoniously cut off from the Manoel Theatre as if it were an infected limb, and the superficial reasons we were always given for its detachment from the Manoel were financial ones. It is not very easy to accept this, especially since the Manoel Theatre stretches itself to the limit to organise its commercial interests, details of which, on the other hand, are kept close to the chest of the administration.

Dr Xuereb is constantly denying that the Manoel Theatre should be held responsible for the pitiful state of drama in Maltese. The Akkademja tal-Malti differs very strongly on this point. As Malta's "national theatre", the Manoel Theatre is duty bound to have a tangible programme to develop drama in the vernacular. It in duty bound, as a key cultural institution, to promote positive action, promote inclusion, widen access, stimulate local creativity and remove barriers to participation.

It is unthinkable of any other theatre institution in Europe not to have "a vision" and "a strategic plan", but this is precisely what Tony Cassar Darien, the artistic director of the theatre, declared in public. To date, we have not had Dr Xuereb contradicting Mr Cassar Darien.

It is only natural for a body like the Akkademja tal-Malti to ask that the Manoel Theatre should change its patterns of cultural participation and to come up with a development plan for Maltese theatre. The Manoel should locate decision-making at an appropriate level but as things stand, it is not even clear whether Dr Xuereb is voicing his own opinions or those of his fellow members on the Management Board of the Drama Committee.

It also transpires, from correspondence that Dr Xuereb has had with Mario Azzopardi, author of It-Teatru f'Malta, that members of the Management Committee have seriously complained that they do not even know how the Manoel is running, who takes the decisions and why they are treated like "rubber-stamps". If one has an institution that does not even respect the importance of joint working and joint vision, it is hardly surprising that the Manoel Theatre cannot facilitate the provision and the effective development of Maltese drama.

While shedding the responsibility to develop Maltese theatre in an inventive, pro-active and stimulating way, and while it has no stated objectives as to how it proposes to do this, the Manoel Theatre is churning out much that is of no value.

While people like Dr Xuereb would gladly condescend to coarse acting and all sorts of vulgarities in English at the Manoel or at St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity (the managing director at St James, we came to know recently, is also a member on the Management Board at the Manoel), when it comes to the vernacular, they deride it, and claim, like Dr Xuereb, that the future of Maltese theatre does not belong to the realm of what is "popular" and what goes up, for instance, at the Catholic Institute.

I have never read a review of a play staged at the Catholic Institute by Dr Xuereb, and that proves that what is happening at that locality is totally ignored. Theatregoers who patronise the Manoel, for instance, can tell that certain plays presented at the Manoel are hardly any better than the fare at the Catholic Institute, but social status allows them to thrive, just because they are on the billboards of the Manoel.

Dr Xuereb's contributions to this paper are perforated, I am sorry to say, with serious contradictions. On the one hand, for example, he states that "most of our best drama groups prefer to perform in English, mainly because there is little in Maltese by our playwrights that is skilful and stageworthy". On the other hand, Dr Xuereb applauds, rightly, plays by Joe Friggieri, played "to large and enthusiastic audiences".

So, there we have it. If the Manoel committed itself to commission and develop such work, and if it had persisted with nourishing Maltese drama through its now-abandoned drama-writing programme, the situation might not have been that pitiful. Moreover, it is becoming known that even playwrights like Joe Friggieri are lamenting the fact that they cannot write creatively and at the same time be expected to produce, rehearse, direct, publicise and organise audiences for their plays.

The same complaint is coming from other playwrights, like Oreste Calleja, which shows that local authors are disheartened as there is no proper infrastructure to support them and spur them on. This, to the mind of the Akkademja tal-Malti, should be the responsibility of the Manoel Theatre and the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts would be in perfectly proper position to demand this. The Everitt Report of the Council of Europe (2002) says that Malta should have its own national drama company and make sure that it develops drama built on Maltese and Mediterranean realities.

On the point of local companies being reluctant to stage Maltese work, one should also point out that the MADC pantomime, the largest audience-puller in Malta, is peppered with Maltese idioms, and this phenomenon should be analysed attentively.

As for Dr Xuereb's reference to the Manoel Theatre's "more intellectually sophisticated audiences that go to the Manoel and St James Cavalier" (here lies the whole issue regarding Dr Xuereb's elitist bias), the Akkademja tal-Malti would wish to refer readers to a musical review presented recently at the Manoel for six nights, and which according to Dr Xuereb himself, complemented the mood of a theatrical season notable for coarse dialogue, "redolent of coarse language and sex situations", presented "merely to elicit mechanical guffaws from the audience" (see Paul Xuereb, "Coarse acting revisited", The Sunday Times, June 8).

Dr Xuereb, unbelievably, asks why should the Manoel Theatre look into teatrin as the grassroots potential for the development of Maltese theatre. The Manoel should do this because it declares itself as "the national theatre of Malta" and that label obliges the Manoel to research, evaluate and progressively develop strategies to include exemplification of standards and illustrations of good practice in favour of vernacular theatre.

But instead of doing this, the Manoel Theatre, apparently on Dr Xuereb's own advice, recently unearthed The Knight of Malta, a pathetic piece of Jacobean literature, and commissioned it to one of Malta's fringe companies, to be performed in English, at an extravagant expense. The play was a flop and the exercise proved once again that somehow, the Manoel Theatre has the wrong priorities.

Regarding this, Dr Xuereb is not in a position to decide what is "of low calibre" and what is not. Plays in English that have been put up very recently both at the Manoel and at St James Cavalier, two venues that Dr Xuereb links to "intellectually sophisticated audiences", show precisely the contrary.

Dr Xuereb has been sitting on the Manoel Theatre Board for as long as people of a certain age can remember. In the early Seventies, he had written an article, carried in a special supplement on Malta by The Sunday Times of London, wherein he complained that in Malta, "poets flourished, but there is a dearth of good playwrights". How do we explain that 30 years on or more, Dr Xuereb is still complaining that there is little drama in Maltese that is skilful or stageworthy?

Should we not expect that, in the course of 30 or more years, the Manoel Theatre, as Malta's "national theatre", should have addressed the problem and established a national framework that enables the development of Maltese drama? It is the policy of national cultural institutions to provide visions, mission statements and supportive measures to develop cultural objectives. It is the responsibility of such bodies, including theatre institutions to embark on large scale educational strategies and communal development, but to the knowledge of the Akkademja tal-Malti, the Manoel never showed any initiative in this regard.

Dr Xuereb has a very slanted and narrow view of how theatre should develop. He thinks, wrongly, that theatre "cannot develop" according to programmes designed by theatrical institutions. In other words, he does not feel it to be the responsibility of the Manoel Theatre to have vision, to set priorties right and to create a theatrical climate that respects the potential contribution to creativity, inclusion and enhancing people's quality of cultural life. In other words, the Manoel Theatre, according to Dr Xuereb's position, has no responsibilities to maximise the social benefits of Maltese theatre.

The Manoel Theatre needs a long overdue overhaul. It has become an anachronism and the arguments brought forward by its representative do not correspond with Malta's declared cultural policy (2001) and the European Report on Malta's cultural situation (2002). Malta has been promised action and progress in the creation of a sound cultural identity, and, more importantly, in reducing cultural exclusion because of social standing, location, economic or educational factors.

The Akkademja tal-Malti has understood from Malta's cultural policy, that sites like the Manoel Theatre and St James Cavalier, funded so heavily by public money, should no longer be described as places to cater "for the more intellectually sophisticated audiences". Such elitist classification by people like Dr Xuereb, who are so heavily lodged within our state-funded bodies, are against the very cultural principles prevailing in Europe.

My final point concerns St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity, another institution which cost the Maltese public Lm4.2 million to restore, approximately another Lm130,000 annually for its upkeep, and many thousands more to keep its administrative staff. For reasons which, the Akkademja tal-Malti is sure, will become more transparent in a short time, Dr Xuereb is drawing St James into his articles. He originally drew in the services of Chris Gatt, the general manager, who happens to be the same person that sits with Xuereb on the Manoel Theatre management Committee and who the Manoel commissioned to produce the ill-fated The Knight of Malta (see The Sunday Times, June 1). But now Dr Xuereb goes further, and starts describing St James as the place where "the more intellectually sophisticated audience" goes to get entertainment.

Apart from the shallow vulgarities that have started to characterise theatre pieces, English and all at St James, as we can all read from current reviews, Dr Xuereb's references to that place seem already dead set to determine the future nature of the Creativity Centre as another elite institution for snobs and their friends. This danger has been anticipated and now it looks like the threat is becoming more real, even if we look at ticket prices. It is the responsibility of the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts (MCCA) not to allow St James to become another Manoel Theatre.

The Akkademja tal-Malti would like to remind the MCCA that the Maltese people were promised that "the hierarchical shape of culture had to be rethought and remoulded to reflect changing social patterns" (Malta & the Arts, proceedings of a National Conference, ME, Malta, 2001). In that publication, Dr Louis Galea, then Minister responsible for Culture, promised a "democratic emphasis" on culture, as well as "inclusion" and "social integration". While promising that the government will look at Maltese culture as a promoter of national identity, participation, diversity and communal involvement, Dr Galea also stressed that St James would not be or become "an elitist, inaccessible mechanism, available only to the privileged few" (Malta & The Arts, p.106).

The likes of Dr Xuereb seem to be wanting to dismantle this solemn promise after a very short time and are already proclaiming mottoes for the "more intellectually sophisticated audiences" that grace the theatre at St James Cavalier, in the same exclusive fashion that they grace the Manoel. The Akkademja opposes such snobbery with all its power.

Dr Briffa is president, L-Akkademja tal-Malti. writing on behalf of the Akkademja's Drama Commission