Teatru Malta’s latest production, Is-Serra, being staged from today until Sunday, will focus on one of Malta’s most heated current debates: mental health.

It is an adaptation of Harold Pinter’s The Hothouse, written in  1958 and produced in 1980 – a black, menacing comedy  dealing with abuse in a mental health institution.

Is-Serra sheds an uncomfortable light on the casual inhumanity and corruption that one may find in the bureaucratic foundations of institutional authority.

“In the last year, there have been a number of testimonies of stories that are taking place in the corridors of local hospitals. We chose this controversial work by Pinter because we believe it’s great theatre, but also to instigate a discussion about the subject,” says Sean Buhagiar, Teatru Malta’s artistic director.

This event also forms part of The Classics Project, Teatru Malta’s long-term initiative towards translating, producing and publishing a modern classic a year. This year it has chosen to focus on Pinter in commemoration of his 10-year death anniversary.

With a translation by playwright Simone Spiteri, the story is set in a State-run sanatorium where the so-called ‘patients’ are actual social dissidents receiving various excruciating corrective treatments.

Teatru Malta has chosen to combine the young director’s programme with this classic piece. In fact, Is-Serra will be directed by Teatru Malta’s young director for 2018, André Agius, through the mentorship of German theatre director Irene Christ and will be staged at Mount Carmel’s  community theatre.

The cast includes local stalwarts like Victor Debono, who will take on the lead role of Roote, the mental institution’s undermined and disrespected director who has lost control of himself and the very institute he represents.

Mark Mifsud will play another lead role, that of Gibbs, the ambitious and overachieving mental institution employee, while Maria Buckle will take on the challenging role of the very shrewd Miss Cutts. Other  members of the cast include Joe Depasquale, Anthony Ellul, Benjamin Abela and Kurt Castillo.

Is-Serra is being staged today, tomorrow, on Saturday and Sunday at Mount Carmel Hospital, Attard, at 8pm. Twenty-five per cent of all ticket sales will be donated to the Richmond Foundation. For more information and tickets, call 2122 0255 or visit www.teatrumalta.org.mt.