Six characters in search of life elsewhere
After winning the Francis Ebejjer award earlier this year for her play Appuntamenti, 26-year-old Simone Spiteri – actress, playwright and artistic director of all-female theatre group Du’ – secured a place for the group on the local theatre circuit.
Du’s uniqueness lies in the group’s dynamics – their past performances were characterised by an all-female ensemble backed up by eccentric musicians. Appuntamenti introduces three men into the dynamic, and diverges again from Du’s past performances by having only two of the original group members acting in it.
The six characters in Appuntamenti are all linked to each other. They are all taken for granted by their partners so they decide to look elsewhere for attraction, approval and attention. Garcia Marquez’s classic Love in the Time of Cholera is a theme that binds. It is seen as a weapon of seduction by the typical male and as a textbook of insight by another. The ‘under appreciated’ meet the maladjusted at the bus stop. The only problem is that they all choose the same time and the same place. What can this lead to? Watch and find out. But be assured that waiting at a bus stop will never be the same again.
Venue & Tickets: Appuntamenti runs from from 16 – 18 & 23 – 25, October, at St. James Cavalier, Valletta. Tickets are Euros 15 each and the play starts at 20.00hrs.
Reviews: If you’ve not gone yet, but might on the second weekend the play runs, see Andrei’s comment below – it’s a review/crit of the play.
Always too eager for the future, we
Pick up bad habits of expectancy.
Philip Larkin (Next, Please)
A rendezvous of strangers
Waiting is parallel to the human condition. It takes up so much of our lives that we have created an area / room specifically for it. In the play Appuntamenti, the waiting space is the bus stop. Waiting for a bus locally takes up more of ones time since punctuality doesn’t seem to be on top of the ADT’S priority list…
In Appuntamenti the bus stop becomes a focal point where people cross each other’s paths; a strong metaphor for waiting where the characters search for the other in order to be noticed on a deeper level. All the characters in Spiteri’s drama feel lonely in their relationships. They treat themselves to a little game of leading on the other hoping they might connect and be listened to. This invitation is sheer folly (both Anna & Julia verbalize this at a point in the play ) they know very well that such a tryst will only end up making things worse; but the urge to be made to feel like a woman overrides their reason. Once again the bus stop becomes an allegory. Once there we might end up in the wrong place if we do not get the right bus…
This play is a modern take on the mundane action of waiting for a bus. However the waiting in this context is transformed into a journey of self realization and the waiting done is not very different from Beckett’s.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s classic love in the time of cholera is seminal to the drama. This book is a spring board for all the action that unfolds the drama. A catalyst to the problem of human destiny vis-à-vis the regrets that might torment later (or that are disturbing the character at present). The book becomes a symbol of seduction for one of the male characters. Is this, Spiteri’s criticism for certain pretentious men who resort to phony intellectualism to pull women?
All the characters in Appuntamenti seem to be at odds with the main protagonist of Garcia Marquez’s narrative. Patience to make things better in their relationships is lacking. Chris cannot even wait five minutes for a cigarette let alone fifty years for a woman. All the characters search for something better since they know they deserve it (with the exception of Chris). There is more to them then meets the eye. Julia is not the frivolous woman she portrays; her preoccupations run deep; Sara is not convinced at all with her open relationship with Chris. Mark knows that ‘books are a load of crap’ and that life is elsewhere. Patrick is very aware of his double standards and brutish ways with women, and Anna knows she is stuck in a pattern of being too good and even by crushing her heart, she wont be achieving much since as an audience we don’t believe her when she tells Patrick she wont be going back to him. What about Chris? The eternal bum? Is he really being his true self?
I think that as a writer Simone Spiteri managed to capture the diverse discourses mastered by the sexes in a very good way. She managed to blend the tragicomic situation of being in a relationship in a very realistic way. Hers is a semiotic analysis of a couple’s relationship through the metaphor of the bus stop. A play worth watching since it is peppered with an irony that is understood by everyone.