A dramatised monologue detailing the turbulent and sometimes shocking life of Michelangelo Merisi, more commonly known as Caravaggio, is being put up by the threatre company Talenti.
The company, whose last production was the highly successful adaptation of Dante’s classic, Id-Divina Commedia, entrusted scripting to Alfred Palma, a mainstay in the art of epic translations.
Żep Camilleri, who was also responsible for other notable works by the same production house, will be directing. Veteran thespian Mario Micallef will be carrying out the monologue.
Micallef is synonymous with this form of theatre and the unique fascination offered by a production that is carried by a solo actor. Getting into the role itself is no easy feat and involves the portrayal of a tempestuous and unsettled life on stage, a personality that possesses both the genius of art and the traits of a criminal and a murderer who lives in a perpetual state of inebriation.
Caravaggio (who took his assumed name from the name of the city he was born in near Milan), not only makes this mixture an interesting proposition but also an intriguing debate.
He made a name for himself as a painter of the highest order of Italian baroque. He unashamedly produced numerous religious masterpieces portraying biblical figures as common people.
Most of them were controversial works of art that ruffled a few mitres in the Church hierarchy but which were purchased willingly by rich nobles for their spectacular technique, for their originality and most probably for their homo-erotic content.
Caravaggio clashed with justice on several occasions. He beat up another painter, seriously injured a soldier, pelted Roman guards with stones, was caught in possesion of firearms, quarelled over one of his lovers and finally, in 1606 committed a murder. A curriculum vitae that would make the best criminals cry of shame.
The questions that the artist’s strange life gave rise too will be addressed during Caravaggio, which will take place on Saturday and next Sunday and on December 8 and 9 at St James Cavalier, Valletta. Entrance is restriced to those over 16 years of age.