Theatre attendance and state investment

The Akkademja tal-Malti has noted with interest, but also with concern, the report carried in The Times (June 24) regarding statistics about theatre in Malta, based on the latest survey carried out by the National Statistics Office.

While applauding the efforts of the NSO to provide data on cultural activity in Malta, the Akkademja has noted that the statistics given for theatre attendances reflect the situation very partially.

The Akkademja tal-Malti is very interested to know which theatrical entertainment is patronised because it is in English and which are the shows that are patronised because they are in Maltese. The Akkademja is also interested in knowing which theatres have been surveyed.

From the report carried in The Times, it appears that the survey has dealt only with the Manoel Theatre and St James Cavalier. Both institutions are becoming more and more neo-colonial in attitude and, even worse, are representing a network that needs to be broken if the government wants to put into practice what it has declared in its cultural policy and its pre-election programme.

The Times' report makes no attempt to have the opinion of interested cultural parties but quotes only Chris Gatt, manager at St James Cavalier, and Tony Cassar Darien from the Manoel Theatre.

Heavily patronised theatres, like the Catholic Institute and the Salesian Theatre, in Sliema, that produce only Maltese theatre, are never given a voice and this plants suspicion as to why certain reporters are always having their sights on glamorising exclusive theatre venues.

The survey quoted in The Times shows that, in the past few years, there has been an increase in box-office revenue, from Lm0.23 million in 2000 to Lm0.34 million in 2002. Besides noticing that this figure is not showing who is paying for Maltese or English plays, nor the respective box-office returns, the Akkademja would like to draw readers' attention to another fact.

The rise in revenue reflects rising prices for tickets. We have read in the past week or so that a ticket to attend a show at St James Cavalier, supposedly an inclusive, popular centre, could now cost a couple Lm15, a sum that is definitely not affordable by the majority of people.

Two unofficial surveys carried out by students at the Department of Maltese at the university have found that few people can afford more than Lm3 for a theatre ticket.

The Akkademja tal-Malti is worried about this economic cultural perspective, as the situation prevailing at the Manoel and now also at St James Cavalier is making a social statement about those opting for drama in the vernacular.

The Akkademja tal-Malti is also concerned about the degeneration of texts in English being presented at these institutions. The implication seems to be that it is fashionable to use senseless, vulgar and artless, sex-driven language both at the Manoel and at St James. There seems to be a recent obsession to sell sex and sleaze and to go all smutty at theatre institutions that thrive on heavy public funding.

Those critics and apologists who want to convince us that texts in Maltese are not exciting enough and not relevant enough for local companies to want to perform them seem to be suggesting that local writers should start going the same way, and emulate, in Maltese this time, skin flicks that will bring Maltese drama of age.

The Akkademja tal-Malti wishes to comment, in particular, on a remark that Mr Gatt gave to the reporter writing the story on theatre attendances. Mr Gatt is reported as having said that the government "should look at theatre as an industry" and that it "should keep investing in culture because it will give it a financial and social return".

Mr Gatt, as manager at St James, producer and director at the same theatre, member of the managerial board at the Manoel Theatre and beneficiary of direct commission to produce at the same venue, seems to want to go on having his field-day. Mr Gatt is advising the government to "continue to invest" in cultural institutions like the Manoel and St James. Now, this old war building cost taxpayers Lm4.2 million to convert, costs big thousands of liri every year to maintain, costs many thousands of liri more in handsome salaries and, yet, the revenue from entertainment goes largely not to the public coffers but to private companies. In other words, the government has spent millions of liri and is sustaining the St James Centre to provide an infrastructure for private companies that want to sell sex with everything.

In another interview he gave to The Times for the Showtime section on April 4, Mr Gatt pronounced himself "first and foremost" as being "allergic to anything with the word national in it". In the same interview, he said that when the word "national" is involved, he has the suspicion that "whatever is being discussed hasn't been seriously thought through".

The Akkademja tal-Malti finds it very hard to digest such a pronouncement from Mr Gatt. This is the person selected to represent both St James Centre for Creativity and the Manoel Theatre. The former was declared on its opening in 1999 to be "Malta's national flagship for culture" while the Manoel Theatre crowns itself "Malta's national theatre".

The "financial and social return" that Mr Gatt says the government ought to be harvesting from cultural investment is very dim. Apart from the financial aspects, one should mention that, above all, large sectors of the public are already being kept out of St James and the Manoel Theatre.

At St James, for example, the profits are going to private theatre groups, which are, of course, wanting the government to keep investing. What kind of industry is that which has its main public partner invest big cultural capital money and then just gets a pittance in return, for letting out parts of the premises, while all the cut of the profit goes to private pockets?

But what worries the Akkademja tal-Malti even more is that the "cultural investment" that the government is encouraged to keep making is not even being used to benefit the local theatrical idiom. The Akkademja sees no "financial and social benefit" derived from an obscure play at the Manoel Theatre, reportedly costing a large sum of money (allegedly between Lm5,000 and Lm7,000), performed in English in front of 100 people many of whom cannot even stick to watch it through.

Also, the Akkademja tal-Malti does not see any "social benefit" from a play in English, reportedly littered with filthy verbiage and lewd gestures at every turn, just for the sake of selling cheap sex and toilet humour, both at the Manoel and at St James Cavalier.

Mr Cassar Darien claims that "after September 11 everything went haywire" and "the first thing that got a knock was the leisure industry". How did September 11 knock out The Knight of Malta, if we may ask? Is not the knockout the fully blown effect of what Mr Cassar Darien had warned us, viz. that the "national theatre" he and his colleagues direct has "no vision" and "no strategic plan"?

The Akkademja is very preoccupied with this state of affairs. The whole mayhem is militating against the rational development of Maltese drama and condemning us to a state of neo-colonialism when it comes to the local stage.

The Akkademja tal-Malti asks other groups and societies guarding the interests of the language, in all its aspects and contexts, to be vigilant about what is happening in the theatrical and cultural sector in general.

It also calls upon the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts to demand accountability, standards and the implementation of measures expressed in governmental policies and its own declared mission statement, especially when it comes to national culture.

Dr Briffa is president of the Akkademja tal-Malti and chairman of the drama committee.