LANDSCAPE of DrEAmS TheaTre anon is back wiTh

iTs biggesT producTion To daTe, a site-specific project

built around the ospizio, a space which echoes wiTh laughTer, dreams and hauntings from the past

theatre

June 2010 | Sunday Circle 89

“This,” says Paul Portelli, extending his

arms through a wide corridor-like space,

“is where the Carnival procession will go

through.” He looks around him excitedly.

“We have open spaces, tunnels, beautiful

crumbling stairways, thick bastion walls…

the possibilities of this place are endless.”

text by sandra aquilina -§- photography by andrew gauci attard

June 2010 | Sunday Circle 91

theatre

I look around the Ospizio walls, taking in the atmosphere of decay, crumbling structures and strong thick walls. The wind rushes past, through the tunnels and sally ports, over the bastions and into the open spaces outside. The echo of past lives is almost tangible here. It is a place for dreams and hauntings, where you can get blissfully thrillingly lost until you are not sure whether you are walking into the structure or deep inside yourself.

Now it will be used as the venue for Theatre Anon’s latest site-specific project – briefly called “The Ospizio Project” – after the site. The project was born when the Malta Arts Council commissioned Theatre Anon to come up with a site-specific project built around the space. “The first thing we had to decide was whether Ospizio had a story which could work for us, which could resonate with an audience,” says Paul.

So he plunged into an exploration of the history of the place, reading up its stories and speaking to historians and folklorists such as Giovanni Bonello, Guido Lanfranco and Carmel Cassar to obtain detail. What he discovered was a veritable wealth of levels of narrative, stories, possibilities. Originally built as a Polverista or gunpowder mill, the Ospizio was later put to different use by Grandmaster de Vilhena. “He turned it into the first welfare institution of its kind.” Throughout its lifespan it morphed from a

home for old people, to a mental institution – a place for the imxajtna as they were called – a foundling home for orphans and a place for the Maddaleni or prostitutes.

“One of the stories I found refers to a Grand Inquisitor called Passionei who lived in Malta for about 10 years and had an affair with a Maltese girl, who bore him two children. Being a man of the cloth he was not supposed to engage in activities of the sort but he genuinely loved the girl. Their children were kept at the Ospizio… we found a lot of stories like that…”

It was also at the Ospizio that the biggest cholera outbreak on the island first broke out and around 450 people were carted out, says Paul. “They were buried in Wied Ghammieq, Kalkara which is still known as the Ghalqa ta’ l-Erwieh Minsija, the field of forgotten souls.”

Well-known for their experimental, bold and intelligent theatre, Theatre Anon was formed several years ago. Performances such as Metamorphosis and A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, in collaboration with Kneehigh theatre from Cornwall, have turned into cult memories for theatregoers. Almost every Theatre Anon show seems to tap a little into the realm of dream and memory, using physicality and movement to suggest worlds beyond the ones we encounter everyday.

it was also at the ospizio that the biggest cholera outbreak on the island

first broke out... they were buried in wied ghammieq,

kalkara which is still known as ‘l-ghalqa ta’

l-erwieh minsija’

Sunday Circle | June 201092

theatre

Now, for the past 18 months, Paul and his colleagues have been working on Ospizio, a site-specific project which promises to be a first for Malta. “Our life is on hold,” says Paul, a founder-member of Theatre Anon, who is also directing the project. “We have stopped eating, we have stopped sleeping…” He searches for words. “This is the craziest, biggest, most ambitious project we have ever done.” The performance has stretched the company’s resources to the limit, he says.

“You have to bring yourself into it. We’re building things – we can’t afford to employ carpenters – we have to do everything.” He sighs. “You can’t do it if you look at it as work.”

Involving over 80 people, the performance was built up slowly, in collaboration, through a process of workshops and trials. “Our script writer Clare Azzopardi attends rehearsals and we pool or remove ideas. It’s a very eclectic process.”

Slowly the performance took shape, weaving into itself themes of guilt, death, facing up to the past – but also the story and secrets of Ospizio and Floriana itself. But, despite the eerie themes, the performance is spectacular, fast-paced and very funny, involving Carnival processions, explosions, fire, says Paul. Actors, artists and musicians come together in a wonderful fusion, he says.

Through all this, audiences will follow performers through the spaces in a promenade show which will lead them to discover the secrets of the space. “It’s a journey of discovery – even for the audience hopefully – within a space. But by the end you are not quite sure whether you have also been travelling inside yourself.”

Throughout, the audience is a part of the story. “On one level, the audience is your camera,” he explains. Sitdown theatre, for instance, gives you one camera while a promenade performance such as this allows you to have close-ups, landscape shots, panning. “But by doing the journey with us, they are also a part of the story and participate on an emotional, tactile, sensual and oral level.”

So rather than the audience’s presence being ignored – as in traditional theatre – they are drawn into the performance as they find that statues morph into actors, and sometimes it’s hard to make out whether they’re ghosts or covered with debris, and things are constantly on the verge of becoming something else. But nothing is done for effect, says Paul, and everything helps to tell the tale.

“We don’t want the work we do to be cosmetic. We love saying stories, but it’s not about the actor and his ego, it’s about sharing a story,” he says. “For us, it’s about being sincere and being in the moment.”

Ospizio by Theatre Anon is commissioned by the Malta Arts Festival. It will run at the Ospizio, Floriana on 5, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 14 July. Tickets are available from www.maltaticket.com or from any of the following outlets in Malta and Gozo: Exotique, Agenda, Vodafone, Bookends and Newskiosk. For further information visit www.maltaartsfestival.com and www.theatreanon.com