Theatre
Passjoni tad-Duluri
Spazju Kreattiv

With the run-up to Holy Week packed solid with passion plays and pageants to remind us of our faith and commemorate the most violent and sacrificial stage in Jesus’s life, it seemed like a breath of fresh air for Spazju Kreattiv to stage a contemporary take on the passion of Our Lady of Sorrows.

With a script by Joseph Galea, focusing on three very different mothers and their personal tragedies, Passjoni tad-Duluri was a play where sadness reigned over a valeof tears.

Sadness reigned over a vale of tears in Passjoni tad-Duluri.

The manner in which these women’s circumstances are affected by their loved ones’ actions exhalted motherhood as the ultimate position of mercy, compassion and comfort, which takes on the misfortunes of the family and stoically soldiers on, trying to get through life as best they can.

Carlos Farrugia’s direction and Adrian Bartolo’s light design were solid and effective, enhanced with live music by Mark Spiteri Lucas on the keyboard and Augusto Quintano on the violin.

However, Joseph Galea’s script had no element of hope written into the piece and came across as heavy and depressing. Plays with a very heavy subject matter are nothing new and have been put up successfully, but success comes from the fact that they expose a range of human emotions and varying responses to adversity, often highlighting hope within the attitudes or actions of one or more characters, in spite of a largely negative outcome. This is where Passjoni tad-Duluri failed.

The manner in which these women’s circumstances are affected by their loved ones’ actions exhalted motherhood as the ultimate position of mercy, compassion and comfort, which takes on the misfortunes of the family and stoically soldiers on

The performance presented the audience with three separate stories which appear to be connected by the three protagonists’ use of the same psychiatrist, who in turn recounts their tragedies to the audience in retrospect. These separate plotlines took the form of extended vignettes with a pithy take on the sorrowful situation they depicted. In fact, it was the one-dimensionality of the responses which the anonymous mothers took, which turned the performance into a pity party.

Sarah Camilleri played a supportive and loving mother, hell-bent on helping her daughter (Raisa Borg) fulfil her own unrealised dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer. The end result of such dogged focus and pressure was, of course, an obsessive eating disorder and her daughter’s subsequent health issues, culminating in death.

Another suffering mother was Veronica Farrugia whose only son (Ryan Galea) dies of his horrific injuries in hospital following a motorcycle accident, which he brought upon himself with reckless driving after his marriage fell apart – the standard cliché of the cheating wife and distraught husband.

From tortured husband to tortured wife, Antonella Galea Loffreda played a woman whose husband (Joseph Galea) loses his business, takes to gambling and then redeems himself but is plagued by the usurer he had taken a loan from to get back on his feet, until he kills him to protect his wife and children. This leads to the separation of his family as he is imprisoned for murder.

Interestingly, I found the supporting characters in this melodrama more credible and relatable than the three leading actresses, who all seemed to be cast from the same mould and were simply three different versions of the same character, experiencing equally painful situations.

Antonella Galea Loffreda is distraught by Joseph Galea’s gambling habit. Photo: Adrian Bartolo

It is as though they were stuck on the same plane of reincarnation, replaying their sorrow on a loop but experiencing different circumstances: rather like a déjà vu of emotions instead of situations.

It was evident that the passion in the interpretation of these women’s parts was too intense and could have done with some modulation of tone and perspective, adapting their delivery to the stage rather than television, as it appeared that they were hyperbolically playing roles in a soap opera.

The video clips at the end of the performance, showing the audience statistics about eating disorders, road accidents and blackmail/usury came across as an instructive afterthought.

Passjoni tad-Duluri had potential but failed to deliver because it overdid one aspect at the expense of others and, while it did make a commentary on very real social issues and problems, the presentation was voyeuristic rather than expository.

• Passjoni tad-Duluri is being held again tomorrow at 8pm and on Friday at 10.30am at Spazju Kreattiv. The last few tickets are left at www.kreattivita.org.