Theatre
Cloud Busting
Mikelanġ Borg, Drama Centre

School can be a challenge, especially if you’re a teenager desperately trying to fit in. It’s not easy to stay true to yourself while trying to be whatever and whoever others say you ought to be. Being different is something that will bust your street-cred and spoil your chances with the girls. Being different will get you busted – nobody likes difference – conformity and uniformity keep you safe in a microcosm where stereotypes establish a hierarchy that rules the social planes of the school system. Helen Blakeman’s Cloud Busting, based on the novel by Malorie Blackman and performed by students at Masquerade Theatre Arts School last weekend at the Mikelanġ Borg Drama Centre in Ħamrun, deals with the conflict that young Sam faces when it comes to dealing with the reluctant and odd friendship he is thrown into with the class oddball, Davey.

The whole performance is linked to a project called National Theatre Connections which is part of the Youth Theatre Organisation with London’s National Theatre. Ten new plays are commissioned by established UK playwrights aimed for young performers and are put up by over 200 different schools and theatre companies: an admirable idea which Masquerade has taken up and perfected very well. There was nothing childish at all about the way in which this production was run; which proves that with hard work and good guidance, young people can execute a very polished and professional performance. Director Daniela Blagojevic did a great job in pulling her students together to work on this project and made good use of the space available together with basic projections and effective music which helped to showcase some very promising new talent in the theatre scene. Following this performance, there are several people to keep watching.

Miguel Mercieca’s sensitively portrayed Sam, is caught in a dilemma; and indeed the story is narrated mostly from his point of view. Told in retrospect, in direct address to the audience, Sam recounts the day he chose to write about his friend Davey in an English assignment, given by Mr Mackie, played by Christian Gauci, in a surprisingly convincing teacherish tone. The class are, at first surprised at his choice and advise him not to go digging up the past, but he insists and the effect of telling his story proves cathartic all around in the end. Isaac Buhagiar made an excellent Davey, the strange boy nicknamed “fizzy feet” because he can’t stop jigging and who looks at things differently and doesn’t mind saying so. Forced by their parents to walk together to school, Sam transitions from bully to fair-weather friend, to close friend after Davey saves him from being run over on their way to school, but is still ashamed of being discovered and ridiculed by the others, so he keeps his friendship with Davey under wraps.

Davey slowly teaches him to look at things differently – that having a new or unusual perspective wasn’t necessarily bad and “cloud busting” – the game of staring up at the clouds and trying to imagine what they might be becomes a metaphor for just this – that different perspectives are all equally valid if expressed properly. Both boys showed a lot of maturity in their interpretation and when it came to the Davey’s revealing that he is asthmatic to Sam, the situation takes a turn for the worse when Sam lets it slip in front of the class bully, Alex, played by a convincing Luke Vella, together with his gang – Morgan, Jay and Mark, played by Simon Gravino, Nicholas Martin and Mathias Abela respectively, that Davey suffers from asthma and has an inhaler. In their prank on Davey, where they steal his inhaler, they get him worked up to a frenzy till he suffers a severe attack and then run off, leaving him semiconscious and gasping for air till Sam finds him and comforts him, sending the girls in class for help. The various perspectives, such as Jay’s reluctance to be part of the prank and sympathy towards Davey’s condition due to his cousin suffering from the same ailment, began to emerge as the action unfolded. What struck me the most about the entire performance was that these young people really worked well together, creating a strong and credible dynamic and making for a very polished, engaging performance.

Adult roles are not easy to portray credibly, especially by teenagers, who often come across as trying too hard, but Maya D’Ugo and Emily Geraghty, who played Sam’s Mum and Davey’s Mum respectively made an excellent job of it. Judy Magri as Head Teacher could have worked a bit more on clarity but her poise and tone were just right in her confrontation with Davey during assembly. The girls in class fell into the usual categories – the “cool girls” Alicia and Claudia, played by Kim Restall and Martina Baldacchino, Casey, the silent, musical type, portrayed by Amber Sammut, who hangs out with class geek, Oliver, Giovanni Vella, both of whom fit in better than poor Davey; and finally the class best friends, Lisa and Rebecca, played by Rebekah Attard Trevisan and Tammy Busuttil. Although their parts were secondary, their enthusiasm was not and the entire cast managed to engage their audience so well that one could see the effort in characterisation and practise they put into the physical aspects of it such as the fighting and bullying scenes.

In the end, following Davey’s hospitalisation and his mother’s subsequently pulling him out of school and moving away, the entire class realises how judgemental they were and how wrong it is to stick to the status quo. They remember Davey in a dream-like scene where he teaches the bullies tolerance and his absence is actually noticed in class – he is missed and by way of atonement, the rest of the students make an effort to get along. The boys, bullies and all, end up cloud busting together – busting their petty differences and setting their prejudices aside, in the process.

The mellowing effect that Davey’s message has about living life is incredible. They all end up writing about him in the end, because in the words on the two little cotton-wool clouds that the audience were given to take home, “It pays to look at things differently sometimes… [be­cause] Up there – it’s just full of possibilities.”