'Exposing the absurdities of modern life'

This is the second time you’re adapting a relatively recent work of Maltese literature for the stage. What attracted you to Sant’s collection in particular?

Alfred Sant’s work attracted our attention since as a group we were looking for something with a comical vein but which also had the ability to lead to a reflection about everyday reality. With KAST, we always try to use theatre as a tool of investigation to delve deeper into the state of being human. Sant’s cynical stories – which expose the aburdities of everyday reality and human beings – fitted the bill perfectly. Sant has an ability to create dramatic situations through his literature that the group felt could with some adaptation translate into a stage performance.
 
Do you think the stories are essentially compatible to the stage?

Each story has its own soul and in fact we are using different styles to adapt each one. Sant is able to make characters come to life with his writing. We tried to use as much of his dialogue as possible as he has such a natural way of expressing himself in Maltese that you could actually hear and picture the conversations as you read.

The situations portrayed are so absurd but yet are so close to life that everyone might say that they have met one or more of these characters at some stage in their life. Obviously, because we are using two different mediums (literature and stage) there were some sacrifices that we had to make while adapting the stories.

There are some descriptions which we either had to do away or else translate into stage props, movement, or even at times just a reference. Theatre, being so suggestive, is a powerful medium that can at times replace reams of words with just a mere gesture or hint.
 
Do you think that there is a lack of drama that tackles contemporary Maltese mores? What do you make of the fact that most Maltese productions adapt scripts ‘exported’ from abroad?

Many theatre productions that explore Maltese society are usually situated in a distant time which give the audience a feeling of ‘distance’ from the subject matter being depicted on stage.

The audience is safely cocooned in their seats watching something that happened a number of years ago and do not necessarily feel that the issues being addressed are relevant.

With our more recent productions, we have tried to tackle literature that is not only contemporary in its writing, but also in its situations. Some issues that we tackle in Pupu Fil-Bahar might raise eyebrows, but nothing that is being depicted or said has not happened or is still happening right now in our society.

We do not want to sound in any way judgemental about ‘exported’ scripts (as you call them) – who are we to judge? Though these scripts are extremely well written and provide a powerful experience for the audience, we as a group still feel they are foreign in their soul. We do have good Maltese writers – especially up and coming ones – who can write as hard hitting literature as any foreign author.

We are becoming more cosmopolitan in our outlook, which provides writers who might not necessarily be based on Maltese shores the distance to view our society from afar and analyse with detachment what makes us tick as Maltese.

Given that you’ll be adapting a series of short stories (as opposed to just one continuous narrative) how did you play around with the material itself?

Like I said, we’re using different theatrical approaches to the stories. One must bear in mind that we are adapting only a small selection of these stories, as it would be impossible to adapt all of them.

We have used one of the stories as segue from one story to the next, and there is an underlying investigative theme which connects all the adapted stories. What stands out is the emphasis on the absurd situations that emerge and which are common to all the different stories being performed.

On a related note, how did workshopping the piece work towards you forming the stories into a play? Did you discover anything particularly interesting about the source material while undergoing that process?

Oh yes we did. There are many elements that Sant leaves for the reader to discover for himself/herself and there are more questions than answers. It is in the nature of the short story to make the reader ask questions and to leave these unanswered by the author. A good short story should leave that twist to the end, and Sant does this inmany of his good short stories in this collection.
As actors, we had to find the answers before we could proceed further.

This was the first step in the workshops we carried out. We had endless discussions about why a character acts in a certain way in the story which then had to be translated to stage. Moreover, what is interesting is that theatre makes us more aware of how our bodies, actions, thoughts are made up of words, words and words.

It is fascinating to translate a word into a gesture or an expression and realise how one word can change the way a character moves or speaks. We also discovered that there are certain patterns in stories that at times reflect more things about the author than about the characters.

We must admit that we met up with Sant to discuss the stories we had chosen to adapt, and there were some nuances which he had to make clear as even after weeks of discussion, we could not come to a conclusion.
 
Was Sant at all involved in the process, at any step of the way? Do you know what he makes of the production so far?

Sant was involved only in as far as he clarified certain points in the stories that we could either not understand or agree about. He did not see the theatre script or come to any of the rehearsals. We feel very privileged that he has entrusted completely with his work and gave us permission to use the text freely.

Pupu Fil-Bahar is directed by Carmel S. Aquilina. The rest of the cast includes Antonella Galea Loffreda and Joseph Galea.
It will be playing at St James Cavalier over April 1-3; 8-10. All shows are at 20:00. Tickets at €12 (with €10 concessions) can be booked by calling 2122 3200 or logging on to www.sjcav.org.