Words are very slippery things. Just when you think you have understood them, they take on new meanings. There is the matter of tone. Should these words be read at face value? Am I being ironic, sarcastic, matter-of-fact? Is there a hidden meaning to my words? Is there a sub-text to all this?

In a newspaper this is indicated by form as much as content. A reporter's or a journalist's words are expected to be read as fact, the sum total of his or her research. A novel, on the other hand, often has the omniscient voice.

So what happens in a theatre or film script?

Well, a script is a very strange thing. It is the distillation of often long months of scribbling of ideas into 50 to 80 very packed double-line pages. Whereas it is not uncommon for a novel to run to 400 closely-knit pages (the last in the series of Harry Potter novels ran to 759 pages), it is very rare for a script to go to over 100 pages. And yet, in those pages, the dramatist must create a journey as powerful and meaningful as any novel. He or she must put into it all the contradictions, comedy and despair of everyday life.

Dramatists, and even more so modern dramatists, very rarely give indications as to how they expect the words to be spoken. They rely on a whole bunch of people to be sensitive to his or her writing to understand the hidden meanings. These are the actors, director, set, costume and lighting designers and the backstage people, who together mine into the script finding the often unspoken truths of the characters and their lives, creating the tone, mood, tempos and energies, such that, as Hamlet reflects, they can put a mirror to man.

I write all this to try to understand the confused reasoning behind the recent ban of the play Stitching.

According to the censors, some bloggers and others who are considered reliable commentators on these matters, the play is a series of scenes of depravity and sexual servitude. It desecrates the memory of Auschwitz and has no artistic value. And, according to one witty blogger, "we have opened our minds so much, our brains have fallen out".

You may be forgiven, therefore, for being surprised if I describe the play as "a surprisingly tender, often humorous, brutal romance" (not my words, incidentally, but those of the American-based Playbill.org). And here are some other descriptions for the same play: "Explodes with power, discipline, integrity and sheer cruel psychological accuracy. Neilson's writing has a terrible beauty." - The Sunday Times; "Startlingly rich and challenging, Neilson depicts with aching precision a relationship in which love is undermined by distrust." - Time Out; "Shattering, shocking, a serious, persuasive account of the blind alleys love can lead us down." - The Daily Telegraph; "A characteristically brave and brutal offering." - The Independent; "A deeply mesmerising, if shocking, experience as a couple smashes through taboo after taboo in a harrowing sexual tug of war." - The Evening Standard.

How can there be such disparity, such contradictory points of view? How can these censors and the would-be commentators interpret the text one way while theatre critics who have seen the play come out with a totally different opinion?

I can only hope it is that because neither censors nor commentators know how to read a script. Otherwise, why is it that in none of the commentaries about the dialogue referring to Auschwitz is it noted that this is a personal, deeply-felt and regretful confession?

Other moments that come under the microscope for consideration are also taken spectacularly, one would almost be tempted to say wilfully, out of context.

However, one small thing is still nagging me.

A few days after the ban on the play was reconfirmed, we eventually got the reasons for this decision. Two of the main objections were blasphemy against the state religion with regard to an expletive and a throwaway line, which is funny but harmless, and obscenity with regard to the Auschwitz dialogue.

Both objections are plainly frivolous. So why the charges? Well, frankly it is because under Maltese censorship law if we put on a play which is banned, the maximum penalty is a fine of €46. However, a charge of blasphemy or obscenity, if proved successfully, is punishable under the Criminal Code. Do you get my drift?

So here is the dilemma. To prove that the play is innocent of the things it is accused of, I must perform it, as otherwise you cannot prove context. But if I perform it I may be in breach of the law. Why do I get the feeling we are being stitched up?

There is no newspaper, book or TV censorship. So why is theatre treated differently?

Are the laws of public decency not sufficient?

Every society sets its own limits and quite rightly so. But a mature society does not need the state to set those limits, especially when it comes to theatre. It has other means of doing so.

A mature society must be allowed to make up its own mind. This is why the play must and will go on.

Mr Gatt is the theatre director behind the Unifaun production of the play Stitching.