For a play which features graphic lines about putting grenades into private bodily parts, an exploration about love is not exactly the first thought that comes to mind. And yet, this is what Tender Napalm is about, director Toni Attard tells Veronica Stivala.

“I could squeeze a bullet between those lips,” says Man to Woman in the opening of Philip Ridley’s Tender Napalm. “Press it between those rosebud lips. [...] Your tongue would feel something hard. [...] You would accept this bullet in your palette. It would feel as natural as... as a pearl in the palm of an oyster.”

This is Tender Napalm, the account of two young lovers – we do not know their names – whose relationship we explore voyeuristically. Although we have been in relationships, we only experience one side of it. This time, we are given access into the intimacies of a couple’s relationship.

“Can love be tender? Can it be explosive?” asks director Toni Attard. The answer is yes.

As the oxymoronic title suggests, the play is about opposites; tender is not exactly the right adjective to describe the gelling agent for an incendiary device. Nor is using such extreme language the norm in a healthy relationship. Or is it?

Both napalm and love are chemicals, and it is here where the two apparently unlinked words connect. Ridley is toying with the concept of an explosion of emotions, of feelings.

Ridley’s play takes us through the volatile relationship of two people who are stranded on an island. We see their relationship at different stages in their lives, from when they are very young (both actors are 20 years old), to growing into a mature age. But we only understand the play fully towards the end.

Although the dialogue is pushed to disturbing boundaries (“I will put a grenade in your ****), Attard argues that the play is still poetic, if it is played beautifully.

“The text’s intensity and aggression depends so much on delivery. By playing it beautifully, the focus shifts from the harshness of the words to the type of relationship the play is exploring,” he explains.

Attard goes on to reveal how his actors initially explored the text through dance, and even worked with delivering the lines gently and softly. The director compares the process to S&M which is aggressive in action, but to a limited extent.

People do crazy things when in love... Love can be destructive

“This kind of relationship allows you to think about love,” comments Attard. This is the story of love explored in the 21st century. The play toys with the concept of people who fight or are violent with each other, but still love each other. Heck, people kill each other for love.

“Love brings out the best and the worst in us,” confides Attard. “Normally you would have said the best and worst about yourself to the person you love... you expose yourself to someone when you love them.”

The fact that the characters do not have names signals the stereotypes Ridley is playing with. These are typical man and woman roles. “People do crazy things when in love. This is a play about love in a very raw moment. It explores love in its various forms, in a physical way, in a violent way, in a very primeval kind of way. Love can be destructive.”

Indeed violence and rawness are certainly not lacking in this play. Those who are familiar with Ridley’s oeuvre will know the play-wright (also a photographer, author, director, artist and song writer) is no stranger to shocking his audiences. Indeed, Unifaun, the company staging Tender Napalm – also no stranger to art that challenges the mind – put up another of Ridley’s plays, Mercury Fur, in 2008, which “engulfed the audience into a post-apocalyptic world where hope is unlikely”.

Asked whether he thinks the play is out to shock, Attard replies in the negative. As director, he is attempting to overlap the text with the innocence of love. There is an interplay between two young characters who are not experienced in love.

Anyone who has been in love, or who thinks they are in love, or who has been affected by love will associate with this play in different ways, depending where they are in this relationship with this abstract concept that is ‘love’.

When asked what the meaning behind the play is, Attard confides that he would not like to pin it down to a meaning just yet. However, on further contemplation, he comments that it could be that there is a human need to be with someone, even if it is aggressive. Ultimately, love reigns supreme. In its very abstract notion, this is what the play explores.

Is it a love story? Yes.

A traditional one? No.

Soppy? It can be.

Harsh? Definitely.

Realistic? Definitely.

Surrealist? Definitely.

Tender Napalm opens at St James Cavalier, Valletta, on January 30. On this day there are student rates and a post-show discussion. The play also runs on January 31, February 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 at 8 p.m.

www.unifauntheatre.com