[attach id=253610 size="medium"]Libbistni Par Qrun is based on Luigi Pirandello’s Il Berretto a Sonagli.[/attach]

Luigi Pirandello’s Il Berretto a Sonagli may not be familiar to many theatre-goers, but it has been performed a number of times, both in Italian and in Maltese, over the past few decades.

Now, the Association of Past Lyceum Students (ALPS), has revived it at the Manoel Theatre in Victor Apap’s previously performed Maltese version (titled Qerq when last performed) and now bearing the unlovely title Libbistni Par Qrun.

When the great Angelo Musco’s company performed it, the emphasis changed from the quandary of Beatrice, who desperately wants to punish her husband for his adulterous affair with the wife of his secretary/financial controller Ciampa, to the portrayal of Ciampa as a tragi-comic figure who needs to defeat Beatrice’s plans.

Joe Fenech’s production tries to get all the laughs through Spanò. The official who, following Beatrice’s demand, tries to entrap the adulterous couple in flagrante, Spanò is played by Holger Saliba as a bewhiskered figure of fun, almost a buffoon. Another source of laughs is Beatrice’s good-for-nothing brother, Fifi La Bella (Ronald Briffa), a foppish, high-voiced and unintelligent young man, again straight out of farce. Their style of playing clashes strongly with that of the two main characters of Ciampa (Paul Vella) and Beatrice (Monica Attard) in act one and makes the increasing seriousness of the second act less easy to accept.

Vella constantly projected Ciampa’s worry that he is being led into a trap. His strong performance would have been outstanding if his vocal dynamics had much more variety

Fortunately, Vella’s Ciampa saves the production from becoming too much of a farcical comedy that changes into a Pirandellian dark comedy.

Ciampa is man nearing old age who has a pretty young wife whom he adores, even though he suspects she may be unfaithful to him. He believes that each person needs to present society with an image that preserves him from losing face.

When he perceives that his boss’s wife may be leading him into a situation where he becomes a notorious cuckold, a situation where he would be in honour bound to kill both his wife and her lover, he tries to safeguard himself and his spouse from flagrant dishonour.

Vella constantly projected Ciampa’s worry that he is being led into a trap. His strong performance would have been outstanding if his vocal dynamics had much more variety. It is he, however, together with Attard’s jealous Beatrice, who provides a serious counterpart to Spanò and Fifi and who prevents act one from becoming irremediably low comedy.

In the second act again, it is the same two who build up to the play’s ironical and truly Pirandellian ending. In this act, the adulterous couple are caught together but not, Spanò says, in flagrante.

Ciampa, however, is shrewd enough to see that most of the town will not believe the official report, thinking – perhaps rightly – that Spanò is trying to avoid bringing Beatrice’s husband, a wealthy and powerful man, into public disgrace.

Suddenly, he has a brainwave. Beatrice’s jealousy, he tells her openly is the fruit of insanity. If this is accepted, it will save Ciampa from committing a double murder, allowing him to treat his own wife as someone unjustly accused. The incensed Beatrice is forced by family and friends to accept this, and her fury only serves to make the neighbours, who have come in to see the fun, believe more strongly that the woman is truly out of her mind.

This ending was boisterous enough but much too untidy. Surely, a triumphant Ciampa, savouring his victory would have been a more successful closing image.

Among the supporting cast, Rita Camilleri’s Assunta (Beatrice’ mother) and Amanda Cachia’s Fana (Beatrice’s faithful and very worried servant) stood out.

The use of the Manoel’s well-known baroque painted set as Beatrice’s house does not help the production get off the ground. It is neither realistic nor expressionist. Again, I fear that the costumes were a mixed bag. Added to the different acting styles, they made me think at times of the productions familiar in my youth.