Life imitating art

Have you ever had to sit through an excruciatingly bad theatrical performance? One where the level of acting was so dire that you have two options: start making mental shopping lists to try and alleviate the boredom or jump up on the stage and physically remove the "actors" from it.

Come on... I bet practically all of you are nodding your heads while remembering a particularly bad school production you were forced to sit through, am I right?

Well, now is the time to get your revenge.

Robert Farquhar's play Bad Jazz turns the tables on theatre and lets us, the audience, have a jolly good laugh at its expense. The comedy is being put up by the MADC at its recently refurbished Playhouse in Sta Venera.

Bad Jazz deals with a group of theatrical people who come together to put up a play. It ticks all the right boxes as far as theatrical stereotypes are concerned: the maverick, egotistical director uninterested in commercial theatre, the naïve actress who is prepared to do anything for her "art", the down-to-basics actor, the apprehensive artistic director and the hapless playwright who is not even sure what her own play is about.

As rehearsals in this play-within-a-play progress, the actors find themselves sucked into the plot and some of them even end up emulating the characters they are playing on stage.

"The play is set in the theatre world where struggling actors are trying to make it, directors are trying to push limits, writers are calling every thought they ever had 'art' and theatre producers are trying to put bums on seats. But sometimes there is something darker that lurks beneath. In a desperate world where sex is a currency to get what you want, and what you want isn't always what it seems, the lines between fiction and reality blur, leaving you in a ball of confusion," according to director Wesley Ellul.

Robert Farquhar has been a favourite author of Mr Ellul's ever since watching his God's Official back in 2000.

"Farquhar's is an outrageous style of comedy served with a slice of humanity. Since then I have been following his work, trying to find the right piece that is relevant to what is happening in Malta.

"This play fell onto my lap less than 12 hours after I directed my last play, Losing Louis, and I instantly fell in love. I guess my feelings for it are summed up in a review The Guardian wrote about the play that said 'You know a true comic playwright has arrived when the audience starts laughing before the actors tell the jokes.' Enough said!" says Mr Ellul.

This play is certainly not for the prudish, with its sexual shenanigans and plethora of four-letter words, but it is very funny, as the local actors involved are finding out during rehearsals.

"The rehearsal experience is all about helping the actors find deeper connections with their characters, so they do not simply act out their parts, but you take it to a level where you stop thinking 'ah that's so and so on stage', but get sucked into their world and believe the people on stage are the characters," concludes Mr Ellul.

Angelica Coppini plays actress Natasha who, for art's sake sees nothing wrong with her director's request to perform an actual sexual act on stage.

She says that, even though some of the scenarios in Bad Jazz may be perceived as far-fetched, she feels the playwright has managed to create very interesting and eccentric characters while still keeping them real and credible.

"Of course they tend to seem overly stereotyped, but trust me, there are people like these characters around... let's just say I've met a couple here and there! I love that it doesn't take too much effort for the lines to sound natural. It is a pleasure to speak them because they're written so well.

"It feels as though the writer spent months recording people's conversations, and then made a play out of the transcripts," she says.

On his first reading of the play, actor Keith Pavia admits he also thought that the premise was a little implausible. However, he soon changed his mind:

"I like to think of it as a spoof on theatre, which although is pretty over-the-top can actually happen in reality."

Graham Arnold, who plays the part of Gavin, the megalomaniacal director, agrees: "When I first read the script I thought instinctively it was one of those trendy, vulgar, shocking plays that seem to be in fashion here at present. Gradually, by digging a little deeper, I realise this one is subtly different. What I believe the author to be saying is that theatre purely as entertainment is a thing of the past.

"Clearly he believes in unashamed shock tactics as a tool to stimulate reactions, get the senses reeling and provoke serious questions... not only about moral issues, but about who and what we really are deep down; our secret beings. The shock tactics are purely there to reinforce his idea of what theatre should be. It is wonderfully crafted and, even at its most lurid, somehow poetic."

In any case, it's quite a ride.

• Bad Jazz will take place at the MADC Playhouse in Sta Venera from April 18 to 20 and from April 25 to 27, with a preview night on April 12. More information and booking by e-mail: bookings@madc.biz and online: www.madc.biz and www.theatricalconspiracy.com.