Death and the philosopher

Joe Friggieri’s prize-winning L-Għanja taċ-Ċinju (Manoel Theatre) is a tribute to Socrates, an ancient Greek philosopher who has continued to fascinate people of all sorts, and not just philosophers, down to our time.

The lighting must have been inspired by a Caravaggio painting, and that is what the frozen scene immediately reminded me of- Paul Xuereb

Like Jesus Christ some centuries later he was a charismatic figure who attracted many admiring followers, and like him he did not leave one word written by him personally to posterity.

What we know of his teaching, and we fortunately have a great amount, was recorded and beautifully written out by his greatest pupil, the philosopher Plato.

From Plato and from some other sources we know now how greatly he was esteemed by many Athenian intellectuals, but we also know how other people suspected him of being a bad influence.

Indeed, the most famous writer of Athenian comedy, Aristophanes, satirised him mercilessly in his play The Clouds, a scene from which is incorporated in Friggieri’s play.

Like some other thinkers, Socrates caught the attention of contemporary politicians, such as the dashing general Alcibiades, the hero who became a villain when he and others espoused Sparta’s cause in its war with Athens, helping Athens to be defeated, and of Critias and other members of the tyrannous oligarchy that suppressed democracy in Athens for a time.

They became his friends, and he was thus regarded as an enemy of democracy, so when he was 70, a group of people headed by Meletus, Anytus and Lycon, staunch democrats, lodged a prosecution against Socrates, strangely enough not on political grounds but on the grounds that he had corrupted young people by teaching that the gods of Athens did not exist.

Friggieri’s Maltese play, directed imaginatively by Albert Marshall, presents the story from the conspiracy of the three men to prosecute the philosopher, through his trial and condemnation to death, down to his last hours as he fearlessly prepares to drink the deadly hemlock.

He refuses his friends’ offer, made after their bribing of the warden, for him to escape, talking all the while to his close friends, drinks the poison and shortly after dies. Plato’s account in his ‘Crito’ of Socrates’ death is one of the most moving accounts ever recorded of a tragic event. All the names I quote from this point onwards are the Maltese versions used by Friggieri.

As we have come to expect of him, Friggieri writes lucid and never stodgy dialogue. The trial scenes, like most scenes of their type, are largely formal in shape, and perhaps could have done with a little more cut and thrust, but all the other scenes, and especially the most vivid scene of all when three women speak in a hostile way about how Sokrate’s friends had ruined Athens, ranks with Friggieri’s liveliest in any of his plays.

One of the women (Teresa Gauci in good tragic form) has lost two sons in the disastrous expedition led by Alcibijadi against Syracuse, while the others scold their husbands, who have just been performing in Aristophanes’ anti-Sokrate play Is-Sħab, one for not being a handsome husband and the other for being a poor actor. The scene brings out clearly and economically the people’s disapproval of Socrates.

One of the actors, Simon Curmi, who is Strepsijadi in the Aristofane play within the play, brings in a vigorous performance as the boisterously discontented man drawn by Aristofane, who is enraged by the bad advice Sokrate has given him, and tries to combat, however unsuccessfully, his wife’s disparaging remarks about his acting skill.

The actor who plays Socrates in Is-Sħab, Martin Gauci, shows himself to be a modest person in the scene with his wife, and still remembers when Socrates came to see a performance of the play, had liked his acting, and had told him that what matters is not external but internal beauty.

Gauci then also plays the warden who gives Socrates his poison, showing kindness all round and advising Socrates how best to avoid suffering from the poison.

The scene of the three women and the scenes involving Strepsijadi are humorous scenes, but they have an underlying seriousness.

The play’s second scene, enacting a famous dialogue between Aristofane’s Sokrate and Strepsijadi is directed by Marshall in the right low comedy fashion.

All Curmi lacked was the large phallus normally worn by comic actors in ancient Athens. Friggieri is right to show us this scene as it makes audiences understand that this merciless guying of Sokr-ate must have influenced very strongly popular thought about the philosopher.

Marshall takes good care to give a different tone to each scene, making good use of superb lighting (not so good in the downstage area), and a good set by Ray Farrugia with a memorable backdrop depicting a blood-red sunrise, and a temple facade depicted expressionistically at an angle. Marshall’s use of low comedy is juxtaposed with the high seriousness of the court scenes, and the dignified pathos of Sokrate’s last scene.

Many in the audience must have been struck, as I was, by the freezing of the action for a number of seconds as Sokrate’s pupils and admirers bend over him on his bed in the prison cell. The lighting must have been inspired by a Caravaggio painting, and that is what the frozen scene immediately reminded me of.

I am far from sure Marshall was right, however, to introduce dancers into some of the scenes, however striking Mavin Khoo’s choreography was and however talented the dancers.

The play, despite the humorous scenes, has a certain classical elegance, and the choreography introduced what I felt was a baroque element. Where I think the choreography worked very well was in the scene where Alcibijadi (Chris Spiteri) comes back from the grave to speak in Sokrate’s defence and is surrounded and brutally stopped by a band of warlike spirits from the underworld wielding staves.

Again I am not sure if Friggieri’s decision to have a chorus with two chorus leaders – the admirable Ninette Micallef, and Christine Briffa Francalanza – was correct, as they made little impact. The real chorus were the three women and the two men in the scene seven.

The play remains in the mind as an entire action, not in terms of individual performances, even if Michael Tabone’s sharp and lucid Sokrate, sometimes bluff in speech and never at a loss for a retort or a quip, gives a marvellously steady performance, and rouses our admiration at the end.

Of the accusers, Zep Camilleri’s Meletu, sure of himself and a strong leader, makes most impact, while Sokrate’s defenders, who include Anthony Ellul’s beautifully spoken Kritun, make a smaller impact largely, I suspect, because their parts need more fleshing out.

Friggieri has ignored a statement by a contemporary writer about Sokrate’s wife, Santippe, being a shrew, making her instead a great lover of her husband and a tearful defender of him as a family man utterly undeserving of death. Jane Marshall manages to give this two-dimensional small part a third dimension.