In his Caravaggio, a monologue commissioned by the actor Mario Micallef (St James Cavalier), Alfred Palma gives a lively and reasonably comprehensive picture of a great artist and very difficult man.

As a narrator, Micallef was excellent, taking us steadily through the events of the painter’s short life

The only trouble is that he is so fascinated with Caravaggio’s rampant sexuality – he was almost certainly bisexual – with his love of low life and a violent temper that got him into great trouble again and again, that he devotes minor attention to what made him such a remarkable painter, adored by the conoscenti but greatly suspected or actually hated by many others.

Palma’s script points out Caravaggio’s frequent use of boys as his models, showing how his first teacher in Milan, Simone Pederzano, was a paedophile who was not averse to abusing the young models. His great patron in Rome, Cardinal Francesco Maria Del Monte, had the same tastes.

Caravaggio’s use of low-life women as models for great paintings like the Madonna dei Palafrenieri or Death of the Virgin was considered scandalous by many, but brought a new realism to religious paintings which, coupled with his revolutionary use of chiaroscuro, made his pictures bring the figures of saints and his depiction of the events that befell them close to the lives of the people who saw the paintings.

Zep Camilleri, who directs the production, does little to make up for the script’s scanty attention to the artistic elements of Caravaggio’s work.

As a colleague of mine said to me, Camilleri could have used projected images of the paintings to give some idea of why Caravaggio caused such a great stir even in his own time. We should have been stunned by images of the amazing work he created.

Micallef gives another of his performances based on his remarkable memory, but the decision to have the production rely solely on the performer himself has surely restricted the show’s effectiveness.

One can accept Micallef’s slipping at three moments into the character of three people who knew Caravaggio, such as Cardinal Del Monte. But the painter’s life was so rich in events, both artistic and personal, that I felt the need for visual supplements to Micallef’s performance, forceful and lucid though it certainly was. There should have been more use of music, including late 16th-, early 17th-century music – the music of his time.

The script tries to give all the known important information about the artist’s life while bringing out aspects of his character. The actor thus has the difficult problem of being a narrator – a task normally calling for objectivity – while being at the same time the protagonist of his narration – a task that should bring out the personality, virtues, vices, prejudices and all belonging to this protagonist.

As a narrator, Micallef was excellent, taking us steadily through the events of the painter’s short life from birth till, I think, a few moments before his death, and here, of course, the audience has to suspend its disbelief.

His loaded innuendoes about the sexual habits of Simone and Del Monte seemed to be leading us away from his own sexual proclivity for good-looking young men like Mario Minniti, his frequent companion and model.

His only admission of sex with the boys is, if I remember, at the beginning when he speaks about his sexual precociousness; and his references to sex with women are vague, with perhaps one exception. For Caravaggio, perhaps, women were rarely more than sex objects.

What Micallef’s performance did not bring out strongly was the painter’s fierce and dangerous temper. Perhaps this was the fault of the script which gives the performer no suitable moment for flaring up. Here, the conflict between acting as narrator as well as protagonist of the narrative was apparent.

Micallef should by now have no doubt about his fine reputation as master of mammoth monologues. Can his admirers hope that his next appearance will be a two-hander or even a play requiring more performers? We can all remember this beloved actor in performances where he shone as the leader of an ensemble.

Caravaggio is being performed for the last time tonight at St James Cavalier, Valletta.