26 Dec Simone Spiteri Interview
Award winning playwright Simone Spiteri, has been involved in the theatrical scene for the past fifteen years. For the past 10, she’s also been running her own theatre company Du’, and yet, she claims that she never quite chose theatre as her profession. “I feel that the theatre randomly pulled me into choosing it,” she says candidly. “I don’t come from a background populated by people in the field, and yet here I am, with so many different experiences under my belt.”
Owning and running her own theatre company has given Simone the freedom to work how, when, with whom, and on what she pretty much pleases, however, she makes sure not to let this freedom make her grow complacent. “Whilst learning from every project and applying it to another, I always make sure to push as many boundaries as possible,” she explains. “Sometimes this means going back to the drawing board and trying something new – something that challenges me and sometimes even scares me. Lately I found this type of challenge in – Fly Flynn and #babydaddy – two productions that form part of this year’s Żigużajg Children’s Festival.
Fly Flynn, is a bedside puppet theatre piece – an idea that Simone came up with after deciding to respond to a call for volunteers by Puttinu Cares. “I had wanted to volunteer with sick children for quite a long time and just as I was about to send an email to offer my time to Puttinu, I realised that I could offer more than that. Given that sick children cannot come to a theatre, I thought that I could take what I do to their bedside.” The performance moves on a trolley from bed to bed so that each child gets their own individual show. The plan is for this to be performed at Mater Dei Hospital in collaboration with Puttinu and the Rainbow Ward.
A few months ago, the Du’ team tested the narrative that Fly Flynn is based on with a group of youngsters. “This helped us understand how the characters’ journey was impacting the children’s understanding of the main themes,” explains Simone. “It was quite an eye-opening session during which we realised how the adult mind often tries to take the complicated path to things when a simpler more direct method favoured by children, is not only easier but almost always better, purer and more honest.” Fly Flynn is about a young flamingo who falls behind his flock, hurts his wing and must learn to overcome this obstacle.
Getting to audiences that are not typical theatre-goers has become one of Simone’s main interests in life. “Getting to children in hospital is a challenge in itself but so is getting to young people who are more inclined to spend their weekends in Paceville rather than in a theatre,” says Simone.
#babydaddy is a production that aims to do just that and by working with young people to create the concept, the team is hoping to have created something that will attract a segment of society that are not yet theatre goers. #babydaddy is about a teenage cool guy who gets a girl pregnant at 17.”
A typical production by Dù is a very organised affair with preparations starting months before show time. All the group members, including Simone, multi-task and juggle different roles, but when preparing for a show everyone’s responsibilities are set out right from the start. “I truly believe that a dynamic and flexible team is the key to success,” says Simone, “and I always choose the people to work with very carefully. A theatre production entails long hours of work, waiting around, planning, discussing, and negotiating. Towards the end it also becomes your entire social life, so whilst skill and talent are vital, a group that truly enjoys each other’s company is just as essential. Production week is when everything reaches a climax, when the whole team lives on dealing with unforeseen technicalities, copious amount of junk food and caffeine.”
Is there a particular message in Simone’s latest works? “As a playwright and theatre practitioner I think my job is to create a world of possibilities for my audience which I populate with tools to help them create their own understanding of it,” says Simone. “Every single thing I have ever written or created has always garnered different readings from different audience members because we all enter a theatre space with our own specific emotional and cultural baggage – and I think that’s the beauty of it. Two people may be sitting next to each other watching the same show and yet end up taking home something different, but equally valid.”
“I am not possessive of, nor adamant that there should be one single specific message that must be understood by every member of the audience,” adds Simone, “on the contrary, the more things they elicit from it the happier I am because that means that the work is rich enough to allow for multiple interpretations.”
Simone has been writing since childhood but she only started to take it seriously when she launched Du’ ten years ago. With an all female team, Simone soon realised that there was a serious dearth of scripts for female casts. “Initially I started writing out of necessity, then out of interest, and now almost out of duty. I don’t think that writing is something I want to do but something I need to do. It is where I have found my voice and I now cannot imagine not writing for the theatre. After I won my first Francis Ebejer prize I realised how thirsty people were for contemporary work that spoke to them about their plights and lives outside the theatre doors and since then I have endeavored to create work that constantly tries to explore what makes us tick as Maltese, Mediterranean, European and ultimately humans. The second Francis Ebejer prize which I won in 2011 was a metaphoric tap on the shoulder that helped me realise that I was on the right track.”
Simone has also started to take her work outside of Malta. “It’s been an eye-opening experience that came with a huge learning curve,” she claims. “Sharing and comparing work with foreign colleagues has challenged me, inspired me, and ultimately helped me push harder and reach further for what I want to achieve through my writing.”
ZIGUZAJG
The fourth edition of ŻiguŻajg Arts Festival, a festival in Malta which puts children and young people firmly at the centre returns between November 17 and 23.
It will include a bedside puppet show on a moving trolley, a performance which creates poetry out of drifting plastic bags and an installation based on children’s paintings.
The festival will feature 28 productions, including 12 foreign shows from seven countries, is this year expected to have audience of 12,000.
The festival aims to place children in a set of parallel worlds where dreams and memories, forests and gardens, fairytale and reality come together to tell gripping storylines which they will relate to.
#bigdaddy
Studio 18 Theatre / Maltese (with some English) / St James Cavalier Theatre Duration 75 mins
Tuesday 18:30 (followed by a Q&A session)
Saturday and Sunday 18:30
Fly Flynn
Puppetry / Non-Verbal / St James Cavalier Upper Galleries
Duration 20 mins
Monday 17:00 | Monday 18:00 | Wednesday 17:00 | Wednesday 18:00 |Sunday 18:00
Tickets can be purchased online from WWW.ZIGUZAJG.ORG or from the St James Cavalier box office.
*This article was first published on Pink Magazine
