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The Summer University of Performing Arts kicked off on the 29 July and is presenting a number of varied performances up until the 31 August 2005 at the MITP Theatre in Valletta.
 The launching performance ‘Drowning Lilies’ by Aleateia Theatre Group, will be on tonight the 31 of July at 20.00 p.m., and between the 16 to 20 August, as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Erika Brincat talks to Loranne Vella, one of the founding members who trains the actors of this alternative theatre group, and finds out more on what they’re all about.
How was Aleateia founded and how has it progressed since then?
Three of the founding members (Victor Debono, Russell Muscat and myself) were theatre studies students at the time (1992) and since the course was anything but practical, we decided we wanted to form a group within which we could try out in practice the theatre theories we were reading about. The other member was Simon Bartolo, who was more interested in writing than in acting. The first two years were a kind of exploration – only Victor had some practical theatre knowledge, whereas the rest of us had to discover for ourselves what it meant for us to do theatre. We created our own training routines, creative exercises, games etc. The original decision to do away with the idea of a director was scrapped when we realized that having no guidance meant that the group had no structure to keep it in check. Simon was the natural choice – he’s a dynamic leader as well as a writer. Aleateia, then, had its very own director and playwright. In 1998 only two of us remained in the group so an effort was made to find new members. By 1999 there were 12 of us. Four years later another set of actors joined the group while some had to leave to continue their studies. With every new intake of actors, the group has to allocate time and space to redefine itself.
Each performance too demands a new approach to the creative training process. One performance might stress the use of voice, which means that more emphasis will be put on vocal training, while another performance might be highly physical and so the training has to meet this demand. Sometimes it’s the other way round – the way we are training might lead to a particular type of performance. We never know precisely in advance where a project might lead us.
Do different members of the group have different roles to play even within the organisation and set-up of Aleateia?
Yes, Aleateia was never meant to be simply a group of actors. And in fact it never was. The first year of work for any new member of Aleateia allows enough creative time and space for self-discovery as an artist. So each one of us is either, a musician, writer, designer, singer, and so on, apart from being also an actor. Each individual’s skill is ideally shared with and passed on to the rest. It took me almost two years to discover that my other area of interest in the group is the training of the actor.
What would you say is the one thing that characterizes the group and its performing style?
I would say that we are committed to try to surprise our audiences every time. There are constants in our plays and the people who come to watch us know that the group will have done their homework, but there is also the element that there will be something new and somewhat different from one performance to the next. There is also the excitement of watching an original play specifically written for Aleateia.
Over the years we have worked with various styles such as farce, the absurd, the surreal, the parodic, the poetic, the tragic, the poignant, the grotesque and so on. But I think that humour is at the base of Aleateia performances and we include it even in our most serious plays like Drowning Lilies.
Although we do make use of costume and make-up, we are not dependent on them because we want the emphasis of our work to always be on the performers’ acting and reacting to text and to each other. For the same reason, we make use of very few props and simple, minimal sets. Voice, movement, expression and poetry make up each work.
Is there any hidden meaning behind the group’s logo?
The Aleateia logo consists of an unbroken circle of arrows pointing in and out around the name. It was inspired by Deleuze and Guattari's belief that the self is “a flux of desires and intensities which both shoot out in many directions and absorb many influences”. Aleateia is thus seen as an individual with the actors, audiences etc. making up its 'intensities'.
What is the concept of your current performance Drowning Lilies?
The play deals mainly with the human incapability to accept difference in others. For the twins, their conjoinment is normality but for their mother it is a “specialness” which can be used lucratively, and for the other characters it is a deformity. Nobody in the life of these Siamese Twins has ever stopped to consider the fact that that is who they are.
People who are ‘different’ should not be forced to alter their normality in any way just to accommodate the majority’s view of normality. So when they meet Edmund Zanter they can’t help falling in love with him since he is the first person ever to accept them as they are and refer to them in the singular as they wish.
How did you get involved in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and what is it like for the group to perform overseas?
That was Toni Attard’s doing. He’s been in the group since 1998 but he’s currently studying in Edinburgh and said that he misses us so much that we HAVE to go visit him as a group. So what better way than to actually perform there? The Koperattiva Kulturali Universitarja helped tremendously with this.
Performing abroad has given the group much impetus. In Malta we recognise faces in the audience and, especially with those people who come to see us every time, it has become like one big family. Not so abroad where everything is different. The apprehension we share before we perform abroad turns into exhilaration once we realize that the performance was a success within a foreign context.
What brings you the most satisfaction personally when training the other actors within the group?
When we’re looking for people to join the group, we’re hardly ever interested in people with a theatre background. It’s best if they have no theatre experience at all since this ensures that they have not yet been formed within one particular theatre methodology, genre or acting style. Physical training is a liberating process. It sets the performer free from habitual movement and behaviour. It’s amazing how little we know about our physical and creative potential before we start working. There is a strong resistance in the beginning of every training phase. Sometimes it is a physical limitation – this is overcome through practice. But the worst kind of resistance is psychological – we think we’re not able to do something and in fact we don’t do it. The aim of training is precisely to do away with these blocks. After the first year of work, my satisfaction is to be faced with actors who have shed some of their inhibitions and who have started to welcome the training as a form of challenge rather than an insurmountable hurdle.
Any new and intriguing performances in the pipeline we can look forward to?
The very first thing as soon as we return from Edinburgh will be Marbut, a short play for two actors written by Simon specifically for the Malta DramaFest 2005. It will be staged at St James Cavalier Centre for Creativity on 26, 27, and 28 August. After that we shall work hard on a new project in collaboration with Dù Theatre Troupe. That play shall be titled The Hollow Room and will be presented in Malta during the first weekend of October and it will then represent Malta in the theatre festival celebrating the Hans Christian Andersen Bicentenary in Denmark.
In the longer term, Simon is already toying with some ideas of misplaced identity, which have us all excited for a new full-length play. This would be the third and final instalment of Aleateia’s identity trilogy of which Blazing Orchids and Drowning Lilies were the first two.
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