The Malta Independent 19 April 2024, Friday
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Alfred Sant's 'Fid-dell tal-Katidral' performed in Morocco

Friday, 26 May 2017, 07:46 Last update: about 8 years ago

Alfred Sant’s  Dans l’Ombre de La Cathédrale, a  theatrical representation in French based on his best seller Fid-Dell tal-Katidral has been performed at the Comedrama International Festival in Oujda, a city in northeast Morocco, near the Algerian border, one week after it was staged in Montrouge, Paris. The French version of the play, translated by Charles Briffa, has been adapted directed on stage by Anne Bérélowitch and performed by the group Instant MIX.  Instant MIX are planning to  make a multilingual representation of Dans l’Ombre de La Cathédrale, with some passages in Maltese and are planning to tour the play in other countries, including Malta in 2018-2019.

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“The performance in Oujda was unbelievable. The audience at the Comedrama festival was truly ‘populaire’. There were unexpected reactions from the Moroccan audience. They praised the fact that we were looking at history and its lessons. The play worked really well in both countries. Young members of the audience, including other participants from Iran, Egypt and Algeria were thrilled by the play-within-the-play structure. Many took a long time to understand it was not "real". As a matter of fact both audiences in Montrouge and Oujda felt absorbed into the historical scene and followed it as if they were following a movie. ,  Anne Bérélowitch told the media after the representation in Oujda.

Alfred Sant’s best selling play Fid-Dell tal-Katidral, (In the Cathedral’s shadow) was first published in 1994. It won second prize in a national play writing competition held in 1976 and was then performed at the Theatre of the University of Malta under the direction of Joe Friggieri.

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