Alfred Sant’s Dans l’Ombre de La Cathédrale (In the Cathedral’s Shadow), a theatrical representation in French based on his best seller Fid-Dell tal-Katidral, has been performed at the ‘Comedrama International Festival’ in Oujda, a city in northeast Morocco, a week after it was staged in Montrouge, Paris.

Translated by Charles Briffa, Anne Bérélowitch adapted and directed the French version of the play, which is being performed by the group Instant MIX.

The performers plan to make a multilingual representation of Dans l’Ombre de La Cathédrale, incorporating various passages in Maltese. The play intends to tour a range of countries, including Malta in 2018-2019.

After the representation in Oujda, Bérélowitch told the media of the outstanding performance, explaining that the Moroccan audience “praised the fact that we were looking at history and its lessons. Young members of the audience, including other participants from Iran, Egypt and Algeria were thrilled by the play-within-the-play structure.

“Many took a long time to understand it was not 'real'. Both audiences in Montrouge and Oujda felt absorbed into the historical scene and followed it as if they were following a movie.”

Sant's best selling play was first published in 1994. After placing second in a national play writing competition in 1976, it was then performed at the Theatre of the University of Malta under the direction of Joe Friggieri.