A troupe of theatre students in their final year at the Malta Drama Centre will travel to Linz, Austria, to take part in the Fokus Internationales Theatre-Fest. The festival, which runs for 15 days in June, features original plays from Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, Russia, India and Malta.
The Fokus International Festival celebrates European diversity through theatre and invites participating countries “to bring a little of their native identity to the stage”.
The Malta Drama Centre’s entry, Gahan, the Town Idiot, was selected after being short-listed by the organisers, who had asked for DVD previews of vital scenes from submitted scripts.
Based on a concept by Joe Friggieri and Albert Marshall, tutor-director Lino Farrugia created a parody on the travails of Gahan, a national folk “hero” who refuses to die even though he is assaulted by foreign cultural invaders, including Mister Mack Donald, a latter day giant.
“This is a mock drama with traditional overtones,” Mr Farrugia explained. “Gahan is born from the union of a local giant and a fat goddess and, as he grows up to face the big world, he is given to eccentricities and all sorts of improvised music,” he added.
The Maltese entry is being brought to life by a group of nine actors who have been rehearsing steadily for the past two months. A spokesman for the Drama Centre said Malta will be presenting “a highly stylised version of teatrin”, a brand of drama that could well represent the only authentic idiom to have developed on the local stage since the 19th century.
“In a way, Gahan is done in a very clinical manner but the performance is very electric and very dynamic,” said the director, who is being assisted by Chris X. Grech, another tutor at the centre.
Asked how one would expect the Maltese entry to be received at the Austrian theatre festival, Lino Farrugia said: “We think the audience will be surprised with this brand of theatre. They normally consider Malta as a deeply Semitic island and probably would not expect
the many layers of idiosyncrasies we have discovered throughout the rehearsal period.”