Sex can be taboo, scary, funny, disgusting, and sensual... sometimes all at the same time. It’s not surprising, therefore, to find it at the heart of some of the greatest works of art.
Sex has also provided the backdrop to some of the best known plays but it seems to find its best expression in comedy. Malcolm Galea’s latest play, Marti Martek, Martek Marti, commissioned by Staġun Teatru Malti and the Manoel Theatre, is unashamedly a comedy about sex in all its multi-faceted glory. And, it might just be the greatest Maltese sex farce ever written.
Galea knows the power of sex to entertain and titillate all too well and he certainly pulls no punches in his latest work. What he has cleverly done, however, is make us laugh at our own attitudes to sex as a nation. He has skilfully crafted an entertaining narrative around eight, uniformly well-developed and very Maltese, characters that pretty much gives the audience an encyclopaedic overview of our nation’s attitude to the sexual act.
The play revolves around Art (Carlos Farrugia), a pseudo, new-age mystic who organises ‘retreats’ for couples at his Gozo farmhouse… where anything goes. It’s immediately clear that Art, although well-meaning, uses these retreats to satisfy his own bi-sexual desires, aided and abetted by his own ‘spiritual wife’ Veronica (Larissa Bonaci), who was herself “saved” from her negative past by Art. One of these retreats brings three separate couples (with a lot more in common than they would have wished) together under one roof and in each other’s beds.
Galea knows the power of sex to entertain and titillate all too well and he certainly pulls no punches in his latest work
As the intricate web of relationships among the eight individuals starts to unravel, Galea (who also directs the production) shines a bright light on our very Mediterranean, very small island mentality when it comes to sex... the macho attitude of many Maltese men who expect women to comply with their every demand, the cat-fighting between women over men, the shame associated with impotence, the attitude that all beautiful foreign women (particularly those from Eastern Europe) are whores, the gaping hole that is left when the hollow pride of having a trophy wife/young girlfriend/toy boy disappears.
The success of the production owed a lot to Kris Spiteri’s comic timing and dry humour. His Miguel was the perfect foil to Farrugia’s Art and the contrast provided the fulcrum of the storyline. Spiteri was very well matched by Nicola Abela Garett’s Genevieve, his controlling and belligerent pretty young thing.
I was also particularly impressed by Sean Briffa’s Emerson, a shy and sexually-repressed nerd still infatuated with his childhood sweetheart – yet accompanied by the blonde, busty Anya from Belarus (played by Jovana Kuzeljevic).
The third couple was made up of Lynn, the successful career woman (sensitively played by Sarah Camilleri) and her macho, self-obsessed toy-boy Owen (a hilarious Davide Tucci).
Although essentially a sex farce, the production had its own poignant moments particularly towards the end where an estranged couple rediscover the truth behind the lies they have been telling each other and themselves. What ultimately brings them together is their own daughter, ironically enough the result of a sexual act many moons ago.
Galea seems to remind us that, after all, sex is also about giving life and more often than not it that is the main reason for our existence.