Good Friday procession with a difference

The people of Gharghur will hold their Good Friday procession on Palm Sunday this year, as they have been doing since 1975.

Traditionally the procession used to be held on Good Friday proper but with other processions also held in nearby Mosta and Naxxar, traffic flow to Gharghur was difficult. The village's drama group, Dwal Godda, therefore started holding a procession on Palm Sunday and added dramatic sketches, to bring the statues to life.

This year, the church parvis shall once again be transformed into a stage where the group will hold a re-enactment of excerpts of the Passion of Christ, attempting to draw the audience's attention to the relevance of the Passion in the world today.

"This is a procession with a difference," said Dwal Godda's Martha Gauci. "More than producing an exact re-enactment of what happened two millennia ago, we always try to make the Passion play and the procession 'alive', that is relevant to today's circumstances," she said.

The actors will then take part in the procession. As the procession makes its way into the church again, the last four statues will "come to life" on stage and the actors take up the second act of the performance.

This year's performance, entitled Maskri (Masks) and written by Dwal Godda's founder Martin Gauci, starts at 4.30 p.m. and lasts till 9.30 p.m.

Another two villages where the Good Friday procession is not held on the day proper are Ghaxaq and Victoria, in the latter case the cathedral and St George's parish taking it in turns to organise the procession on Good Friday.