This Week • November 23 2003

Playing a madman and a revolutionary

Pierre Stafrace is one of the mainstays of Malta’s theatre scene, a versatile actor who finds himself at home in both comic and more serious roles. MTADA trained, Stafrace has played: Feste in Twelfth Night, Puck in MidSummer Night’s Dream, Ariel in The Tempest; Jimmy in Look Back in Anger; Lopahin in The Cherry Orchard, Comic, Principal boy, Baddie and Dame in various pantos. Pierre is a founder member of Theatre Anon, one of Malta’s more adventurous theatre companies, and for them played the title role in Candide, Man in Lunch, Politikant in Rewwixta tal-Patalott, Kafka in Metamorphosis, Elomire in La Bete, Gomera in The Knight of Malta. If you still have not seen Pierre in action you can do so next month on 6, 7, 12, 13, 14 December at the MITP. Stafrace plays Jean-Paul Marat in Theaterworx production of Peter Weiss’s Marat Sade.’
What attracted you to acting?
I was young and very shy and thought that going to Drama School (MTADA in those days) would help to overcome my shyness. It didn’t. But at least it taught me to deal with it – I mean when you find yourself in a dark space with a couple of hundred people looking at you, hanging on to your every word and waiting patiently while you take a pre-rehearsed pause, you just cannot afford to be shy! Acting is something I now thoroughly enjoy – the challenge of understanding a character or a situation and trying to communicate it across to an audience, without falling into the usual ‘bag of tricks’ is always a thrill.
Do you have another job career and how do you balance the two?
In the real world, I am Marketing Manager at Farsons – a very stimulating, creative and somewhat stressful job. Although it is tiring to go to rehearsals after a long day at the office, theatre does help me to relax by being creative in a different field. Having said that, I find that theatre is also useful to my work – trying to understand the different ‘faces’ of consumers can be similar to trying to get to grips with a character I am playing in a production.
Tell me briefly about your role in Marat Sade?
Well, I am playing a paranoid -schizophrenic patient at the asylum at Charenton in France in 1808 who is, in turn, playing Jean-Paul Marat in a piece written by the Marquis de Sade. In fact, most of us in the play are portraying mental patients taking part in this ‘play within a play’ as part of their treatment. It is very challenging work as one is effectively playing two characters at the same time! Marat is the foil to the Marquis de Sade in this work – two men approaching the same dilemma from opposing directions.
What do you think you and your director have tried to achieve with the role you will play?
The real Marat was a very important figure in the French Revolution – he was effectively a strong driving force behind it. He is often portrayed as the idealist martyred for his beliefs in toppling the aristocracy and saving the poor in France. In reality, he was also a ruthless butcher who became quite obsessed with power….and ended up being murdered in his bath. The director, Marcelle Teuma, has carefully studied the Maltese text and edited it to provide a fast-moving, intense play with some comic touches. Marcelle has very clear ideas of where she would like the work to flow, but the whole group has been instrumental in the development of scenes and characterizations.
Theatre in Malta seems to be enjoying a new spate of life - would you agree?
There certainly seems to be a lot going on! It is good that there is so much theatre happening – and in many different genres. Apart from the musicals that are becoming so widely followed by Maltese audiences, we have been seeing a whole range of theatre - from modern plays, in both English and Maltese, to Shakespeare, by Maltese and foreign companies; from the traditional panto at the Manoel to site-specific work by the harbour in Birgu. There is also a growing movement of contemporary theatre and dance theatre productions. This has certainly been helped by places such as the MITP and the St James Cavalier, which have given companies the space to experiment.
If you wish for improvements to make theatre of a higher quality or make it more attractive to audiences what would you wish for?
Theatre-going audiences in any country do not form a large percentage of the total population. Malta is no exception. Unfortunately, to set-up and promote a theatrical production can be a very expensive exercise, which has to be covered by one or two weekends of running. There could certainly be more assistance from the government side to theatrical projects; hopefully the recently-set up Malta Council for Culture and the Arts will be able to do that. The arts get a fraction of the assistance that is pumped into sports!
Do you see Maltese plays as being too text based? To director driven? A good balance?
The pace and balance of any play, whatever the language it is in, are
determined by the script itself and the role of the director. I have seen plays, translated into Maltese or originally written in Maltese, that have been based on a heavy text and others that were closer to physical theatre. Marat Sade works well in Maltese and, although we have been very strongly 'driven' by the director, she has left us a lot of space for involvement in the production.