EUROPEAN MAY FAIR ENCOUNTER

A Brief on the Performing Arts in Malta

presented by Mario Azzopardi in Manchester

May 2003

Malta is a country of ritual. The Maltese archipelago, consisting of three small islands and two uninhabited ones, was in Neolithic times associated with the fertility cult of the Mother Goddess. During her long reign, dating back 7,000 years, the Goddess was the divinity soliciting fecundity rites, ceremonies and dances by peasants. Those primitive forms of spectacle continue to inform modern day-revelry on the streets: during religious festivities, notably between June and August of each year, thousands of Maltese youths engage in improvised performance characterized by bacchanalian ecstasy.

Even the best contemporary drama makes reference to the matriarchal metaphor and Malta’s leading playwright, Francis Ebejer had singled out the Punic goddess Tanit as his personal logo.

Ritualistic performance has also retained very immediate currency thanks to the dominant presence of the Catholic Church that still sanctions very elaborate, baroque festivities connected with a long calendar of patron saints and other events of national significance.

Street carnival is another characteristic of popular theatre. Introduced as early as the first half of the 16^th century, when Malta was ruled by the Order of the Knights of St. John, this feast of folly

is a huge attraction to locals and foreigners alike. It is regarded as a strong pillar of attraction for cultural tourism in the low, winter season. The mood is joyful and “innocent” although cultural sources often call for the introduction of political satire, a form of subversion that has been banned from the streets since the nineteen thirties, when a British governor prohibited political allusion for security reasons.

The 180 years of British colonial governance came to an end in 1964, when Malta attained its Independence, but the British influence is still very strong when it comes to theatre. Currently, there exists plenty of debate about the need to nourish a national theatre with a distinct Maltese idiom. Mainstream drama in Malta largely reflects direct influences from West End and Broadway hits and such fare is often reproduced wholesale in plagiarized productions using English as a medium. There were attempts to introduce theatrical experiments in Maltese in the sixties and seventies and more recently an annual drama festival featuring emerging local troupes was launched for the summer months. Native Maltese drama had been originally influenced by Italian and French comedy and especially by the Comedy of Art, but the importation of British work for mainstream audiences took over from the Latin, Mediterranean model.

A School for Training in Dramatic Art attached to the Manoel Theatre was created in 1979 under a Technical Cooperation Agreement with Britain but due to financial constraints the Manoel released itself of the running of the school which was later absorbed by the Ministry of Education. The Ministry still operates the institution, known today as The Malta Drama Centre.