Theatre
Ċittadin Vassalli
Manoel Theatre

The Age of the Enlightenment found its standard-bearer in the Maltese islands in the voice of one erudite and passionate man – Mikiel Anton Vassalli, dubbed ‘the father of the Maltese language’, among other achievements, as most Maltese schoolchildrenlearn of him.

The lexicon which he dedicated to the Maltese nation has within its 1796 preface the first intimations of his political fervour: which is the theme of Ċittadin Vassalli, staged last weekend under the production and direction of Mario Philip Azzopardi.

A prodigiously bearded Sean Buhagiar had the titular role ofVassalli, who was well-travelled and well-read. Having embraced the unifying themes of the French revolutionary spirit of independence ­– liberté, egalité, fraternité – he strove to promote literacy and education in our country and firmly believed that the French would deliver the Maltese to achieving independence from the Knights of Malta, following a short interim period of occupation.

A well-devised script coupled with a sensitively-directed, experienced cast makes theatre a spectacle for which it is worth breaking our contemporary shackles of indifference to art

Buhagiar was as impassioned and charismatic as the character he interpreted, making a good young male lead to a strong cast of veteran actors whose performances held the play together with their pace and crystal-cut diction.

Tyrone Grima’s script is a reimagining and a reworking of Vassalli’s life with several achronological events grouped together for the benefit of the plot rather than as homage to historical accuracy.

But who needs dates and timelines when the over-arching themes are so much more important? Anyway, a good plot can afford a bit of wibbly, wobbly timey whimy-ness. The script’s strength lay in its ability to bring out the characters and their interactions in a very tangible and linguistically poised manner – because the words used also paid homage to one of their founding fathers.

John Suda’s Francesco Saverio Caruana helps Vassalli tell the audience his story through the use of flashbacks and reminiscences. He helps him deal with the demons of his past while chained and imprisoned in a Dominican Priory in Rabat as a traitor during the siege of Valletta by the Maltese village armies at the time of the French occupation. These demons, which plague Vassalli’s dreams as he lies languishing in chains, were a very real and original manifestation on stage and took the form of four hooded, hissing, jeering figures – David Bianco, Sean Briffa, Marco Calleja and Edmond Vassallo. The latter also played Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the demons revealed, who, along with Ray Calleja’s Bosredon De Ransijat, challenged Vassalli’s hopes for independence.

Calleja’s Ransijat was well executed, while Godwin Scerri as Grandmaster Emmanuel De Rohan gave his role the gravitas it deserved with a strong and steady demeanour which contrasted with the godliness and gentle piety of Mario Micallef’s Dun Mikiel Xerri.

The latter was portrayed as a family friend who comforted Vassalli’s mother (Ninette Micallef) and their family friends, Nardu (Kris Spiteri) and his mother Serafina (Natalie Micallef), when Vassalli denounced the Church for meddling with State affairs and advocated the division of Church and State in Malta, while insisting on taking his betrothed for a wife, in spite of his having previously taken the vows of priesthood.

Thus the three demons, Bonaparte, Xerri and De Rohan, are confronted and joined by a fourth: the figure of Malta, resplendent in white and red and represented by his deeply-loved soulmate, Katerina De Fremaux, played with poise and grace by Larissa Bonaci. Thus, the excellent Suda’s priest, Caruana, helps him deal with his demons before the very real demons of the Maltese militia march in to get to him. But Caruana stops the madness before it gets out of hand, in spite of the fact that Nardu manages to speak to Vassalli and tells him of the dire state the country is in, as well as the fact that his beloved but estranged mother is dead.

In this way, Rousseau’s words “Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains” are exposed by the heavily chained Vassalli freeing himself of his demons while physically chained in prison. He breaks free metaphorically in the hope that someday Malta too will achieve freedom from the coloniser.

Adrian Mamo’s modern set design was rather predictable in the way it was literally going to come apart at the end as a Samson-like Vassalli breaks off the chains and the walls collapse in a mighty crash.

It was an ending which I wasn’t too keen on, finding it rather facile and simplistic in attempting to make Vassalli’s story relevant to a contemporary audience with present political concerns and agendas. The clever scripting of the previous scenes and the intelligent interactions between characters, as well as the genuine outpouring of feeling when faced by adversity, was more than enough to make Ċittadin Vassalli a very good performance to watch. It proved that a well-devised script coupled with a sensitively-directed, experienced cast makes theatre a spectacle for which it is worth breaking our contemporary shackles of indifference to art.