Political theatre is not easy to write. Political theatre that gets the mix of satire and outrage just right is as rare as a real apology from a politician. When the State-funded and produced Balzunetta Towers tried it in 2017, its script was about as nimble and nuanced as a pirouetting walrus.

Good socio-political satire should hit you in the gut as you gasp and recoil in recognition at the situations you inhabit and partake in every day. Perhaps you realise that you are encased in them, like a rotting chrysalis, fearing that you will never escape.

Two weekends ago Repubblika Immakulata, written and directed by Simone Spiteri (no relation), did just that. It was the first piece of socio-political theatre that really shook me since Fil-Parlament Ma Jikbrux Fjuri in the 1980s.

Repubblika narrates the chaotic unravelling of a family of brothers and sisters whose previously disparate lives are about to crunch into each other and destroy their superficial sense of normalcy.

Petra is the only girl, whose self-worth revolves around her typically Maltese mega-wedding. As karma would have it, this is on the same weekend as the village festa and the snap election that has just been called.

Franklin, the eldest, is obsessed with the village festa, Our Lady Immaculate in the play’s title. It is his vehicle to escape his mediocre existence as a warden, his drink-and-drug induced refuge from the hidden horrors of his childhood. And then there is his dead-end relationship with Cherokee, Petra’s home hairdresser.

David is a budding politician, who in his overweening ambition to make it into Parliament on his first try is not above using his sister’s wedding to burnish his familja magħquda image. Nor does he hesitate to become a puppet in the unscrupulous hands of his fiancée Hannah’s father Albert, a contractor who is determined to get a high return on his investment in David’s campaign. David has no qualms in duping his siblings to sell cheap the one thing that unites them, their family home, to Albert.

But there is a fourth brother, whose name we never hear and who only Franklin seems to be able to see and talk to. Anon is the author’s own vehicle to comment on the increasingly frenetic interactions between the siblings, as they try to manage the slow-motion multiple car-crash of their three life-defining events in the same weekend, and by extension of their sense of individual worth and family identity.

Good socio-political satire should hit you in the gut as you gasp and recoil in recognition

There are many other levels to the script. The realisation of what happened to Anon and his mother. The wrenching lie of Petra’s relationship with her husband-to-be, as he discovers his sexual orientation with the eager help of Petra’s uncle on the eve of their wedding. The crumbling of David’s ‘traditional family’ trope as Franklyn’s drug abuse shames the fami­ly. The sexual blackmail that is keeping Cherokee away from Franklyn, the man she really loves.

If there is one overriding theme in Repubblika Immakulata, it is that the mediocre compromises, life-sapping lies and corrosive greed that can characterise Maltese politics, religious observance and family life will only lead to one inevitable outcome – death, in its various guises.

Franklyn commits suicide, after first having to accept that his greatest act of love towards Cherokee is to let her go, knowing that she loves him. Petra gets on with her ‘perfect’ wedding, knowing full well that her marriage is doomed before it has even started.

David realises that Hannah’s ambition is even more voracious than his own and will ultimately consume their relationship in lieu of power and wealth. In the final scene of the play, Anon is buried alive by this siblings, his screams and the author’s words of warning to us drowned out by festa and spin.

Repubblika Immakulata worked so well on so many levels. It made good use of the theatre-in-the-round possibility of Spazju Kreattiv: its narrative linchpin was a versatile table that was slowly transformed, deconstructed and finally disappeared as the play progressed, much like the family itself.

The talented cast rendered pitch-perfect characterisations of the different Maltese sub-cultures they caricatured, down to the body movements, the switching from Maltese and English and the all-too Maltese profanities. Their interplay was a pin-ball wizardry of humour, tragedy, pathos, horror and political, cultural and social satire.

Yet each character evolved in unexpected centrifugal spins from the initial stereotypes, as the layers of trauma and drama were unpeeled. All seven actors gave excellent performances, but for me three stood out.

Magdalena van Kullenburg, who played the chunky Petra with great courage and honesty, allowed her physicality to infuse her earthy but touching performance.

Kristjana Casha played both Hannah and Cherokee, and I swear that up to the end of the play I did not realise that these characters were being played by the same actress. She inhabited two socially opposite authentic personalities with a moral commitment that uncovered their true selves.

Andre Mangion’s Franklyn capered nimbly around the abyss of the festa young drunk stereotype without ever falling in. He portrayed a depth of pain, cynicism and despair that gave a shocking three-dimensionality to his character.

Simone Spiteri’s work is in the fine tradition of Francis Ebejer and Alfred Sant’s social dystopic vision. Repubblika Immakulata is a stark representation of the wrenching social upheaval of contemporary Maltese society. It is a modern morality play with no pat answers but with many awkward questions about ourselves that today, on Easter Sunday, we would do well to ponder.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.