Challenging study in Maltese guilt

Theatre
Xbihat ta’ xi Wħud li Huma Kattolici
Manoel Theatre

Mario Philip Azzopardi’s new play, Xbihat – ta’ xi Wħud li Huma Kattoliċi, revisits and explores a rather dark patch in Maltese modern history, the politico-religious upheaval of the 1960s.

In the programme, Mr Azzopardi asserts that his play is not simply “a digging up of some old, forgotten mud” as a lesson in history, but rather a way of posing and probing some challenging questions. Why is guilt so deeply ingrained in Maltese psyche? Why do we let the heavy burden of sin shape our conscience and outlook to life?

To analyse these questions, Mr Azzopardi tells the story of two very different characters living in the same town during the early 1960s. Mikiel (Godwin Scerri) is an Italian elderly expatriate living in Malta for many years. A bachelor and gentleman, he is secretly tormented by a war episode which had taken place in Italy during the first war. His continuous pangs of conscience drive the village priest (Mario Micallef) to exasperation. Mikiel’s only purpose in life has become to try and improve the mind of a young girl (Pearl Marie Agius) before it is irreparably contaminated by the town-folk.

The other protagonist is the local girl of reputedly low morals, Liza (Simone Spiteri). Intelligent and passionately active in the Workers’ party, she is also the lover of the town’s lawyer (Sean Buhagiar) who is running for the elections on the Labour side. She cannot put up with the rampant hypocrisy around her and denounces it without fear. Her worst butt is the Church, but even her fellow political activists often get a piece of her mind for their submissive attitude.

The two characters lead separate lives and meet only twice in the course of the play. In the second act, both undergo a major twist of fate. For Liza, who is now pregnant, the blow comes when the Church declares the interdict on the party’s activists. This brings about her lover’s deflection to the opposing party, who also forces Liza to have an abortion and leave the island. On the other hand, Mikiel’s worst fears suddenly take an unexpected twist when two Italian detectives arrive in town bent on rounding him up for an alleged act of war treachery. Although he momentarily escapes from their clutches, it is evident he has reached the end of his tether.

Actually, the two characters share the stage for a third time, in a scene which must be the most visually compelling of the whole play. Mikiel’s pleading to the Holy Eucharist to give him reasons why God had not intervened during the momentous episode which had inexorably sealed his destiny is set off against the scene in the background of a surgeon performing the gruesome operation on Liza. Mikiel’s final oxymoron before he dies, “Is-silenzju tiegħek itarrax!” (your silence deafens) is met with Liza’s spine-chilling scream.

The play is surely a thought-provoking piece. Whether Mr Azzopardi manages to delve deeply enough in the darker recesses of the Maltese soul to provide us with true answers, is a fitting subject for discussion. As one character has it, there is perhaps no such thing as truth, since even Christ was silent to Pilate’s question.

As a production, the first act worked out better than the second. Whereas the first was swift, the second was slowed down by longwinded monologues and subdued by action sequences which fell flat. Only Narcy Calamatta, as an Italian detective, had the right sort of dramatic flair to pull off his long speech (albeit his struggle with lines was plain too). He also managed to sustain a strong Italian accent in his English speaking role. Strangely, Mr Scerri hardly ever attempted to lend an Italian accent to his Maltese, even though the first thing the narrator tells us about him is that he had “a queer accent that made us laugh”. Otherwise, the beauty of Mr Scerri’s voice is notorious and helped him bring a degree of restrained nobility to his tragic role.

Although Ms Spiteri’s performance was striking enough to merit a loud applause from the full-house on the Saturday night, I often felt the exacting role was outstretching her capabilities as an actress. Somehow, her aggressive outbursts and her defying nonchalance were believable. Her tender and emotional moments, on the other hand, never came across as real. Maybe the way the character is written makes her too much the victimised heroine to swallow.

The rest of the cast was uniformly strong, in particular the cold and calculating Sean Buhagiar; Natalie Micallef and Lilian Pace as village gossippers; Triccas as the crafty inspector; Stefan Farrugia as a heinous German officer; and Ninette Micallef as Liza’s suffering mother.

One thing I found annoying was the great number of orthographical mistakes that littered the Maltese text in the programme. I counted over 20 mistakes in the director’s note alone. Next time, please proofread before sending to the publisher.