Cultural institutions and Maltese drama

With reference to Lara Attard Bezzina's letter (July 11) the Akkademja tal-Malti would like to make the following points:

1. Our main interest in suggesting to the National Statistics Office to analyse the performing arts situation in more detail is to arrive at data that would show how Malta's theatre public perceives the language issue and to provide social and economic indicators as to Malta's theatre public.

2. The Akkademja's attention was drawn to reports that statistics on theatrical performance in Malta are not including outreach events in towns and villages and seem to be concentrating only on the two mainstream venues in Valletta, namely St James Centre for Creativity and the Manoel Theatre.

3. References to Chris Gatt and Tony Cassar Darien as manager and administrator of St James Centre and the Manoel Theatre respectively were made in our initial article (July 7) to contest the position taken by the two public administrators as to the economics of the culture industry and the real reasons why Maltese native culture is in a state of "shock". The Akkademja believes strongly that when the government is solicited by the manager of St James Centre to invest in the "theatrical industry" one should seriously look into the issue as to who would be the beneficiaries of this investment from public funds.

4. The Akkademja continues to object to the cheap level of performances that have recently taken place at St James and the Manoel Theatre, two cultural institutions that are supposed to be catering for the sustenance and development of Maltese culture. We have nothing against the correct balance of bilingual productions, provided that our public cultural institutions do not sell and sensationalise the coarsest, most vulgar of theatre fare and outright sleaze that offends national aesthetic criteria.

5. It is very naïve to think that St James Centre and the Manoel Theatre are producing sleaze because "sex is part of modern culture". Sex in theatre is as old as theatre itself. The issue is that, at our national institutions for culture, sex issues should be presented not with smut and slime but with discretion and merit. The vulgarity, but, above all, the artless cheapness presented lately at St James and the Manoel Theatre have economic ramification - it provides profit to private companies when the whole infrastructure is being provided out of public taxes. If private companies want to make money out of smut, they should invest in their own buildings and their own infrastructures.

6. The Akkademja tal-Malti finds it very unbecoming of serious cultural entities like the British Council that recently have put their name as sponsors to theatre material that banks on cheap sexual sensationalism and base vulgarities. The British Council should know there were instances on the British stage when notable critics like Bryan Robertson, Michael Billington and James Fenton did not mince words to condemn "sensational excess", "nauseating loads of rubbish", "banal exhibitionism" and "disgusting, immature theatre devoid of merit".

7. The Akkademja is also concerned that such sensational works at our national institutions are alienating people from considering theatre as a vibrant part of Malta's social and cultural life. We believe in the idea that theatre, besides providing entertainment, should help people develop their critical faculties and encourage a passionate curiosity about the world of ideas outside theatre. This should be the statement of purpose of national institutions like St James Centre and the Manoel Theatre.

The Akkademja tal-Malti is concerned with what happens at our public-funded cultural institutions. What happens within private confines, supported by private entrepreneurship, is another matter.

8. We insist it is the responsibility of institutions like St James Centre and the Manoel Theatre to create the right climate for the development of Maltese drama. National theatre is an essential component of any country's identity and the more we accept that institutions like the Manoel Theatre have "no vision" and "no strategic plan" (the words come directly from the Manoel Theatre's administration) the poorer we become in terms of our native culture, condemning ourselves before our European cultural peers.