Theatre
Il-Propezju tal-Professur
Atriju Vassalli, University

To brush off dead languages as useless and pedantic, of interest only to a few specialists in what is considered to be a micro-niche, is a mistake made by many and supported by the common sense approach that it is far more useful to learn a living language than study a defunct one.

And this is where a linguist and a classicist differ. The Malta Classics Association, in collaboration with Mediteatru, have created a short one-act play which challenges these assumptions and piques the audience’s curiosity about the study of Greek and Roman literature, history and culture, proving that there are several misconceptions in relation to the classics, which should be set straight.

Il-Properzju tal-Professur, presented as part of Evenings on Campus last Sunday, was particularly entertaining because it used two real, respected academics and had them appear as themselves.

This sweet poking of fun was what made the piece work so well

Karm Serracino, who wrote the script for this piece, appears in it as the young lecturer who engages the venerable professor in an initial conversation about a book launch concerning the professor’s latest (and very real, actual translation). Horatio Caesar Roger Vella played his inimitable self – the eccentric and formidable professor of Latin and Greek at the University of Malta. It was already a feat in itself to get somebody like Vella to actually agree to making a cameo, but for him to take on the main role and actually steal the show, injecting what people consider to be a stuffy academic subject with a breath of fresh air, was even better to watch.

This was, of course, in no small part thanks to Serracino’s light-hearted script and director Keith Borg’s ability to coach a main actor, who is clearly not used to being on stage, into a charming exposition of himself, his department’s raison d’être and, by extension, gently sent up typical academic boffins.

This sweet poking of fun was what made the piece work so well – it played on the fact that Vella may not be used to the stage in the capacity of entertainer, but he is certainly not afraid of public speaking and academic lectures are performative in themselves. The piece turned out be a mini-lecture embellished by humour, introducing the audience to the poet Propertius, Vella’s very real translation of it, the concept of logic, oration, rhyme, meter and the poise and background which the classics can give anybody who studies them.

With Borg’s participation as the vain and rather air-headed interviewer/journalist Vanni, and Lara Borg Vella’s patient but feisty cameraperson, Diana, holding an interview with Vella, the themes of media superficiality and the way editing can change the reception and understanding of a piece, echoed the commentary made on the process of literary translation – which was, after all, at the heart of the entire performance.

Following the professor’s long and impassioned manifesto for the revival of the classics in schools, I was convinced: it is indeed a pity that our educational system has been watered down to the extent that it no longer considers secondary school pupils capable of comprehending that which was manageable before.

What is required is a solid grounding in the basics of formal expression – a skill which is sadly being lost in the cyber-age, where our post-humanity is thriving at the expense of our eloquence.

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