Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Mikhail Basmadjian, Pia Zammit.
The cold wind that had pummelled Malta from the early hours of the morning could not have been more aptly delivered as Anders Lustgarten’s incredible and soul touching play Lampedusa was brought to the St. James Cavalier with the same ferocity of spirit and damning verdict of Europe’s response to the on-going atrocity and loss of human life across Africa and the Middle-East.
That same cold wind that drove red dust from deep within the heart of Africa also brings Human Beings fleeing for their lives and yet certain parts of the media, especially those Hell-bent on creating a storm of their own, will have people believe that they are doing it for money, for hand outs, that they would risk their lives running from the evils of a regime for trinkets made of clay. It is a fallacy of thought that does not do justice to the compassion within humanity for their fellow man or woman and one so wonderfully captured in all its anger, its trafficked opinion and change of heart and one that was directed with absolute dedication by the noted Herman Grech.
When the play was performed in Liverpool at the Unity Theatre, the keenness of the play was such that the close impact of the performers caught many audiences unaware, the difference with hosting Anders Lustgarten’s seminal piece on an island, a country, surrounded on all sides by the very waters that many in North Africa are dying in as they attempt to cross from one continent to another, is that close proximity makes it harder to dismiss, to forget the situation, the cruelty of political thought that stirs in the most narrow minded of actions; it is life and death on such a scale that you cannot help but be affected by it.
The two actors, Mikhail Basmadjian and the ever gracious Pia Zammit bring home the startling reality of what Europe really thinks at times, that we as a body of people have been led to believe about what is happening as people find desperate ways to flee war torn Syria and other countries affected by what can be seen as the tip of the iceberg in climate driven wars.
A production of absolute brilliance and first rate direction, Lampedusa, being performed in both English and Maltese during this particular run, is an absolute must see.
Ian D. Hall