Internationally-acclaimed playwright Edward Bond has written a new play that will receive its premiere in Malta next year, as part of a collaboration with Unifaun Theatre and the Manoel Theatre. Unifaun’s Adrian Buckle tells Jo Caruana why this will be one of his most exciting projects to date and a milestone for local theatre.
Malta has long inspired artists. From the classic paintings that adorn our churches to the modern structures imagined by international architects, many talk of the ways our island has spurned them to create.
Now, the latest in a long line of artists to be motivated by Malta is award-winning British playwright Edward Bond, who has penned a new play that will be premiered and staged locally by Unifaun Theatre next season.
But Bond’s relationship with the island does not start here. He first visited Malta in 2001 to give a number of workshops, which is where he met producer Adrian Buckle, the man behind Unifaun.
“Before that, I was an anonymous guy keen to get involved in the theatre but unclear on exactly what I wanted to do,” says Buckle, who has since become well known for his involvement in the local arts scene.
Adrian Buckle“Those workshops with Edward finally helped me to find my voice and scope in the theatre. The fact that I wanted to produce Edward’s plays actually led me to found Unifaun.”
However, it wasn’t until 2013 that Buckle mustered the courage to tackle one of Bond’s plays. After a meeting with British director Chris Cooper, who specialises in directing the playwright’s work, he set about organising a collaboration.
This eventually materialised in the production of Olly’s Prison, which Bond flew over to offer his guidance on.
After the success of that, Buckle was keen to collaborate with Bond again and eventually asked if he could work on a production of one of his unperformed works, Innocence.
But, while Bond didn’t think that script would work locally for logistical reasons, he did agree to pen a new piece for Unifaun to premiere.
“Getting all of the ends to tie together on this hasn’t been easy and I had almost given up,” Buckle says.
“Obviously, commissioning Edward involved a certain amount of commitment that I was struggling to manage on my own.
“Thankfully, Arts Council Malta chairman Albert Marshall was intrigued and, through his involvement, the Manoel Theatre came on board and the project became achievable. Thus, this will be co-production between Unifaun and the Manoel.”
This is a play about how the cry of humanity can drive us all mad in a world of consumerism
Bond, meanwhile, speaks highly of Malta and once spent spent three weeks here every summer.
“Malta is often described as a crossroad, but I don’t see it that way,” he says. “It is an island in its own right; a crucible where the problems of other continents are brought into sharper focus so that we can understand and see ourselves and our problems more starkly.”
By coincidence, the playwright says that it is these elements that also sit at the centre of modern theatre.
“Ninety-nine per cent of it isn’t stage-drama but a pallid reflection of cinema and film,” he says. “It is theatre and not drama: drama must be born on the stage, in the lives of the performers and the audience.
“This play, titled The Price of One, fell naturally into two parts, as many of my recent plays do. One reason for this is that the world is divided, as if it were an apple that you could split apart into the modern and ancient worlds.
“If the ancient attacks the modern it will destroy itself. If the modern cannot respect the ancient, then the modern will destroy itself.
“The ancient world – for me, especially Greek classic drama but not only that – asked questions that have not yet been answered. Yet, they are urgent questions.
“How can an urgency last thousands of years and not be resolved? We have to find answers now or there is no modern future. The question for our time is: ‘To be sane or to be mad?’ This play examines all of that.”
Now that the ball is rolling, Buckle is adamant that audiences can expect a great play. “Through his script, Edward has managed to encompass the whole situation in the Mediterranean, immigration, ISIS and the dictatorship of the European market in one allegory,” he says.
The script tells the story of a soldier named Harry, who finds a baby and decides to look after it. Harry soon meets a woman who is also carrying a baby, and she asks for water for to give to her little one. It is at this point that Harry realises the baby is dead, and the woman begs to wash her baby to honour its death, echoing Antigone.
“The story gets more complicated when Harry agrees to leave his baby with the woman while he goes off in search of water for her,” Buckle says.
“However, the woman deceives him by taking his baby and leaving. When Harry returns he is unaware of the switch and thinks his baby has died too.”
However, it is the far-off cry of the baby that becomes the subject of the play, as it slowly drives the protagonist mad. “On reflection, this is a play about how the cry of humanity can drive us all mad in a world of consumerism,” Buckle says.
With the play now approaching its premiere next season, Buckle has come to believe that Malta is a good platform for launching work of this kind.
“If I can manage it, so can others,” he says. “I think that we can make Malta a hub for new writing. Hopefully this production will be a success, so that more can follow.”
The Price of One will premiere at the Manoel Theatre on April 8. It will then move to Edinburgh for the month of August. Already there are big plans for its future.
“We hope to attract the attention of theatres across the UK and then produce the show in London and beyond. As it is a relatively short play with a small cast, it can travel and we look forward to starting our process with a Maltese cast under the direction of Chris Cooper.
“This is definitely one of the most exciting theatrical journeys that I have embarked on and I am very eager to showcase the power of this collaboration internationally. May it be the first of many,” Buckle says.
The Price of One is supported by Malta Arts Fund.