Guest Post: The Battle for Freedom by Sarah Zammit Munro

“You need to develop your characters as if you are living in the time of Manwel Dimech.  Who are you? How are you feeling?”

These are the words we heard during the rehearsals leading up to the productions of Il-Qfil u l-Helsien Skont Manwel Dimech.

“How are you feeling?” As someone who’s seen the production grow from the start, I would say that I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to work with a cast that managed to adopt the mentality of the Maltese society in the 1800s so effectively – a challenging, as well as natural task. I use the word ‘natural’ here because the very message that Manwel Dimech publicly spoke about is relevant even now, more than 100 years later. His fight for freedom is a battle we face on a daily basis and in more ways than one.

As rehearsals began taking place at the Old Military Prison, I quickly fell in love with the actors’ interpretation of the script and their effort and hard work to take on new personalities of people who lived decades ago. The songs also began to come to life as the location and costumes allowed them to embrace the melodies’ deep feeling and emotion all the more, contributing so much to the musical as a whole. I have watched them perform so many times now, and I still enjoy mouthing their lines or dancing to the songs backstage during performances. I even find myself humming the lyrics at random moments throughout my day!

I conclude with a note of appreciation to all the cast involved and their amazing talent, to the creative team for their inspiring methods of working and producing content that has impacted so many people, to the technical team who made the impossible possible and finally, to the Teatru Malta team for providing me with an opportunity to be part of a production that has come to mean so, so much to me.

“Kulhadd f’postu!”

Sound go, lights go, and here we go again!