Throwback Theatre Series
Raymond 'Fight' Beck
Production House: Teatru Malta
Director: Sean Buhagiar
Playwright: Andre' Mangion
10th-18th March 2018
The concept and plot idea of the play Had first been known to me in passing from its earliest stages.
During rehearsal period of Adam u Eva at St James (which was later performed in October 2016 for Notte Bianca), coming in early to the cafe, I unwittingly got in the middle of a recorded interview between the writer Andre (played Xih at the time) and a young boxer around the same age and from there I got the load down on the play he was working on, writing on. So I was very happy, after 2 years, to have seen it enter the first stage of success: exposure. Being staged in its existence as a Maltese theatre production.
The performance area was elevated to a podium transformed back and forth into a boxing ring, reflecting well the foundation of the story for the characters: how they face life in their lifestyle and in life, to fight or flight.
There were a few rap musical intervals over head (literally over my head in my case as we were seated right underneath the area where they were placed) of a rapper beside a DJ, bright lights minimising this figure into a silhouette.
A modern day chorus in figure and style.
As the play progressed, especially the ending I was able to understand and recognise those intervals and as greatly resembling the Greek chorus, and although I couldn't pick up much on what he said, it was clear that the founding style that runs through the plot being moulded into a Greek tragedy.
One seen thus far
as a literary watermark
in Arthur Miller's works.
I was greatly engrossed in this play, not just by the modern presence of the rapper-chorus, but also the woven plot of the actions and consequences taken by two characters in the play.
All the characters were well-formed, well-fleshed.
They were perfectly chiseled archetypes in their own right, and without props present - for there were very few - they set up the scenes, all maintained stance, including the character played by Hector Bruno whom we haven't seen on local stages for quite a while. His character Il-Lover (constantly pronouncing the sport as 'books-ing') and his buddy Il-Grillu (Jesmond Tedesco Triccas) proved to be the comic reliefs in the play, very well executed, the theatre fools - not an insult! and regular Joes seen at most kazins.
I was drawn to the plot 'cause boxing as a subject is rarely ventured,
and the pieces reflecting the topic
and forming the overall play set in place
and remained stable in showing the reality of the lifestyle of these sportsmen:
the training,
the personal life of the boxers
and those closest to them,
the manipulation when rigging the games nudges its ugly head into the plot . . .
Especially the manipulation from the politician and father of the current champ Dyson Cumbo (Davide Tucci), fixated on getting Il-Gustuz's (Zep Camilleri) kazin for his own financial benefits. His sleeziness was clear and greasy (and that's complimenting Peter Galea's performance) in offering a bargain that was obviously one-sided to the owner and who's also coach to the titular character (John Montanaro). Like he was gonna lose much in not going up for election that particular year - come on!
Boxing within this theatre plot proved that any theme and topic can be ventured, and it wasn't intended to solely direct those who were active in the sport or that only men would enjoy the performance and story - as a storyteller and story lover I was most intrigued.
I
would have appreciated that in the story, the woman in the ring, while
it is true that they are present as such in every match, wasn't just
for show, just to look pretty in holding up "Round" cards or boards
(upside down at one point) in fight scenes. She did shadow one of the
boxers' moves and punches as a form of devised choreography.
Kim Dalli's character as Blair Darmanin was strong, even proved the chosen sacrifices faced when your boyfriend's life revolves around the sport (who also, in greek tragedy terms, was as much the tragic figure as her killer in letting her flaw turn against her - catharsis? - and sign her death certificate), so I'm not saying there was strong-weak portrayals - not at all!
And there's nothing wrong with women not boxing, as much as women choosing family life over a career. What I am saying is that when a woman was in the ring, it wasn't to box or represent women who do box in various styles, but to look nice - in use of a better word.
Would appreciate a story one day of a female character boxing cos she loves the sport, perhaps even hides a past and angst to her choice - just brainstorming I CALL DIBS! - without the whole mockery that women who are meek are weak . . .
(ugh - hate that statement!).
What I MOST definitely didn't appreciate was the use of REAL cigarettes during the performance.
Clearly different styles of theatre were ventured
and moulded into the piece in matter of sight, sound, slow motion.
If I knew the practitioner they turned to I would mention them.
But having an actor in character - I remembered it was Il-Grillu - smoking a cigarette onstage to 'venture' the sense of smell - and a strong smelling brand at that! - was an absolute downright NO! Couldn't breathe because of my allergy AND I wasn't the only one coughing. Just as they put warning signs outside the theatre on use of strobe lights, the same needed to be so for this. Even as a small side note.
I'm not fixating or joking or nicky-picky. I want to enjoy a theatre production and appreciate the end result of a persevering creative process, not feel like a health minority. And this smoking scene wasn't once but more than four times - and this isn't intended to insult Sean the director or Andre the playwright. Even I - with or without strong allergies - would take that into consideration.
Space was blank as a canvas, extended to four walk on platforms at the corners, and balcony was used for rapper chorus and as balcony, with 4 TV screens overhead the stage-ring.
>>AUDIO INTERVIEW<<
https://www.spreaker.com/user/10541489/episode-27-doin-it-for-real-interviewing
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I remembered feeling afterwards "I want to write as good as that" and felt i wouldn't write as strong as that . . . and then the play I was currently working on came to my head, and the helpful advice Brad Birch gave to my uncertainty during the intensive workshop about a month before. The fact that I kept on working on it, writing it, the act itself is the sign that i still believe in it even in its earliest stages, despite the fact that it got rejected in the first session of proposing it to the arts festival i wanted to direct it in. That I didn't leave it just as a shaky synopsis plan, I held on to it without realising i did until a second possibility came about to pick up the sculting tools and worked further to another deadline, as a script.
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Copyright © Diandra A. 2019
Copyright © Diandra A. 2019