My essentials: Lara Agius’s cultural picks

About me

I am a local theatre-maker who writes, acts, directs, teaches, dabbles in sound, and has been known to put together a set or two in the past. I am perhaps most known for my playwriting, and I love creating new sci-fi worlds or diving into domestic dramas. When I'm not on stage, I'm generally reading, puzzling, or playing video games.

Book

I revisited one of my absolute favourite books recently, House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. The story follows three separate narrators, all connected in some way with a house that is bigger on the inside than the outside. ‘Reading’ is perhaps not the right verb here, but rather ‘playing’. I had gotten lost in this book during my undergraduate dissertation, and the same feeling returned. As you fall down the rabbit hole and chase answers in online forums, the act of reading the book becomes almost a rite of passage into the world of ludic literature. I do not believe one can ever go back.

Film

The last thing I saw that stayed with me for days was I Saw the TV Glow. It's somewhere between horror, surrealism, 90s thriller, and many other such genres, and its refusal to be boxed into a single space perfectly complements its core – a story about identity. Schoenbrun tells the story on two levels. On one hand, the dialogue follows two teens and their love for The Pink Opaque TV show. On the other hand, the lighting, music, and lingering shots speak about trans identities, fear, and the desire to ‘be’.

Internet and TV

I follow Rosie Maio frequently. She's a YouTuber who documents life with her Italian-Moldovan family. Her videos remind me of Malta when I was still a child, and I miss it. When she shows her family cooking and sharing meals, swimming in summer, and celebrating village feasts, it feels like looking back in time.

My other guilty pleasure is true crime and conspiracy theories. The voices of Down the Rabbit Hole of Bailey Sarian are always on in the background, and if it's not them, I love listening to documentaries about internet conspiracies.

Music

Fleetwood Mac and Panic! at the Disco haven’t left my rotation in years. A new love of mine has been Corook; something about their writing is so honest and feels like a warm hug at times. The rest of my playlist moves around a lot, from John Zorn to Maddie Zahm, Sabrina Carpenter, Devon Cole, Snow Wife, Aliyah’s Interlude, and Vulfmon.

Place

My great aunt and great uncle’s house were recently demolished. I hadn’t been in the house for quite some years prior to their passing, and driving by it made me feel so strange to see a place that held so many memories gone.

We think of stone buildings as perpetual reminders of a memory, and this moment really restructured that for me. So perhaps I would say my home is one of my favourite places… and the beach is a close second.

This article is supported by Arts Council Malta.