Heritage Malta will be presenting Joe Friggieri’s new play Caravaggio: l-inkjesta at the Manoel Theatre on 19, 20 and 21 October. This play is being presented by the national agency as part of its events being held to mark the fourth centenary of Caravaggio’s Maltese experience.
Based on what we know about Caravaggio from his biographers, but set in contemporary Malta, the play contrasts the claims made by the painter’s many detractors with those of his patrons and admirers. What comes out is a kind of chiaroscuro painting, where the stunning originality of Caravaggio’s compositions shines against the darker aspects of his turbulent nature, which often got him into trouble and led to his early death.
Having killed a man in a tennis court in Rome, Caravaggio was forced to run for his life, finding refuge first in Naples, then in Malta, where he was made a knight, after painting his masterpiece of The Beheading of St John for the Order’s oratory in Valletta.
According to Bellori (1672), ‘Caravaggio was very happy to have been honoured with the Cross and for the praise he received for his painting. However, because of his tormented nature, he lost his prosperity and the support of the Grand Master. On account of an ill-conceived quarrel with a noble knight, he was jailed and reduced to a state of misery and fear…but he managed to scale the prison walls (of Fort St Angelo) at night and flee unrecognised to Sicily, with such speed that no one could catch him.’
For leaving the Island without permission, Caravaggio was expelled from the Order, ‘thrust forth like a rotten and fetid limb from the Order and the Community.’
In Joe Friggieri’s play Caravaggio’s wild character and aggressive behaviour are pitted against his genius as an artist. What John Gash and other critics have identified as Caravaggio’s two principal innovations – his use of chiaroscuro and his practice of painting directly from models – shocked his contemporaries and left an indelible mark on later generations. In Robert Hughes’ memorable words, ‘There was art before him and art after him, and they were not the same.’
The staging of the play coincides with the exhibition of Caravaggio masterpieces from around the world being organised by Heritage Malta between the end of September and the end of November this year at the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.