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Remembering a Chapter of Valletta’s History
from Vigilo 54
by dinlarthelwa
THE THEATRE AT
PALAZZO CARAFA By Vicki Ann Cremona
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Imagine yourselves back in 1914. You are standing in a hall in the beautiful Palazzo Carafa in Old Bakery Street, Valletta. The Unione Cattolica di San Giuseppe, forerunner of APS Bank, has just moved out of the building, which later the same year becomes the new premises of the Istituto Italiano Umberto Primo, founded in 1888,1 one of the many schools financed by the Italian state around the world, that follows the Italian syllabi and system of education. The Unione Cattolica di San Giuseppe, one of the very first workers’ associations in Malta, used to organize leisure and educational activities for its members on the premises. Since 1912, thanks to its efforts, the palazzo has become one of the earliest places for the public to watch films, due mainly to the generosity of a businessman, Giovanni Apap, who lent the organization a projector.2
The theatre hall in Palazzo Carafa, viewed from the stage. Theatrical activities also became an important part of the programme of the Umberto Primo school which in its heyday had well over 300 pupils. Primary school teaching included the Montessori method, which believed in motivating pupils through drama activities.
By the mid-1930s, the enfilade of rooms along the entire façade of the of the piano nobile of the palace had been interconnected to form the large hall that still exists today, equipped with a stage for theatrical performances. A rare programme of a prize day held on Sunday 2nd February 19363 shows a mixed programme of entertainment both in Italian and in English that includes the staging of two performances.
Mussolini, who had first become Prime Minister of Italy in 1922, is mentioned in the programme, by means of a tribute entitled ‘Al Duce’. This was the year when the British withdrew the licence of the Istituto di Cultura Italiana, and severely restricted the activities of the Umberto Primo school.4 A photograph of the time, taken from the stage, shows a cultural activity. The hall is packed to capacity, and decorated with flags and banners.
The carved fireplace on the left of the photograph is clearly recognizable as the one still preserved in the hall. There is no doubt that this is the very same hall that still exists today in Palazzo Carafa, and that therefore, the interconnection of this series of rooms to form one large hall took place before the Second World War, when this building housed the Umberto Primo school.
The concrete balcony at the rear of the hall is not visible in the photograph, and its date remains to be ascertained. However the crooked cross motif in the wrought-iron railing on the balcony reflects a similar motif on the proscenium arch, suggesting that these formed part of a single scheme, which may have been executed in successive stages.
What is beyond doubt is that the hall is one of the very few surviving architectural traces of the assiduous investment by Italy in promoting its culture and system of education in inter-war Malta. This was the period when the language question was reaching fever pitch.
The fascist government’s rhetoric was that Malta was ‘terra irredenta’, a lost part of Italy that needed to be liberated and reclaimed. The large number of pupils who attended the school attests to its popularity. Even after the colonial government imposed restrictions in 1936, there were still over 300 pupils attending the school.
By 1938, the Umberto Primo school had vacated the building, while the impending war in Europe loomed closer. That year, the palazzo was taken over by the Circolo Gioventù Cattolica, when it moved out of its premises in Old Theatre Street that had formerly belonged to the newspaper The Daily Malta Chronicle. Many prestigious names in politics and in the arts were to emerge from this association, such as Herbert Ganado, George Borg Olivier, Lawrence Gonzi, Vincent Apap, Charles Coleiro and Mario Micallef. It was patronised by intellectuals such as Dun Karm Psaila.
Theatre was an essential activity for the Circolo; in fact, already in 1924, the association’s theatrical company had mounted the boards of the Manoel Theatre for the first time, and many of its members have acknowledged that ‘the stage was synonymous with Gioventù Cattolica’.5 This was mainly thanks to the efforts of the indefatigable Mgr Salv Laspina, who had a passionate love for theatre and cinema.
Already in the smaller premises in Old Theatre Street, Laspina used to put up plays and project films. He had in fact built a projector and a radio to show ‘talkies’.6 According to Dun Eddie Borg Olivier, ‘in Palazzo Carafa, Dun Salv found the stage and the hall he had wished for: he found them ready from the Italian school Umberto Primo, and continued to improve them.’7 He would even project popular films, such as those of Laurel and Hardy, for British servicemen and, at least in one case, afterwards gave them each a set of rosary beads!8
After the war, with the Royal Opera House destroyed and the Manoel Theatre closed, the stage of the Circolo was practically the only functioning theatre in Valletta. It was a thriving hub of activity for the Valletta community well into the seventies, and it has been claimed that 80% of Valletta boys and men frequented the Circolo and either watched or participated in its plays while receiving a religious and civic education.
Plays were produced every Sunday, with the younger members sitting in the balcony before the still-existing projection room was built. Following Mgr Laspina, Joe Tonna continued to maintain the Circolo and its tradition of plays and films, which reached their apex every Christmas.
Sadly, Palazzo Carafa has remained closed down for a number of years – yet its stage remained intact and in sound condition until earlier this year. The stage itself took up the smaller room at one end of the enfilade, while the rest of the connected rooms were used to seat the audience – the furthest one contains the balcony previously referred to, on which a projection room was built at some point.
The stage, complete with trapdoors and even a prompter’s box, was inclined to the front, in order to create better effect for scenery in perspective, thereby creating an illusion of greater depth to the stage. The stage builders had started the inclination above a fireplace, in such a way as not to break or damage it in any way. It is recorded that one of the Circolo’s volunteers, Charlie Azzopardi, used to regularly sprinkle the stage with water and make sure it was kept in a good state.9
A proscenium arch was created in the dividing wall between the rooms, which at some point, was reputedly decorated by young Vincenzo Apap in the art-deco style fashionable at the time. Because the stage was not high enough to fly up the scenery, a system of rollers and ropes would wind it around horizontal poles, just like the sails on a ship.
Until February 2020, some pieces of scenery were still rolled up above the stage, which was in a very good condition. One wonders if these have been discarded, or whether, hopefully, they are still intact and retrievable.
Many were the possibilities to give the space new life: as a fine example of a community theatre, as a community museum, or even simply as a testimony of the extraordinary story of this building, and the changing social needs of the communities that it has served.
Left top: The raked floor of the stage, showing one of the trapdoors; Left bottom: The timber stage was preserved intact until earlier in 2020; Below: An event in the theatre hall of the Istituto Umberto Primo. The photograph is taken from the stage (Private archive)
Right: A programme for Prize-giving ceremony at the Istituto Umberto Primo; 2 February 1936. (Reproduced by kind permission of the Fondazzjoni Fortunato u Enrico Mizzi). Below: An event in the theatre hall of Gioventù Cattolica, featuring Mons. Salv Laspina and Mrs. Carmen Carbonaro on the stage (reproduced from Tonna 1995, p. 174).
Where is the theatre stage now? Gone, broken to pieces under an insensitive axe, without authorization, and mindless of its significance for one of the most deeply formative chapters in Malta’s socio-political and cultural history.
The absence of the stage is interfering with the architectural legibility of the theatre hall. The possibility of rebuilding the stage should be seriously considered, using the extensive photographic documentation that is available.
This sad story has many facets to it. On the one hand, the suppression of Italian culture in 1930s Malta is a section of our history that has been occulted, because colonial interests and the harshness of the Second World War have made us look upon anything pro-Italian dating before the war as pertaining to fascism, with overtones of betrayal.
This history needs to be written, understood and remembered. The hall of Palazzo Carafa is one of the last remaining traces of this painful chapter in our history, which therefore adds an important layer to the significance of this venerable palace.
Another issue is the fact that in Malta, we do not exploit the expertise that is at hand. There are experts on theatre, music, dance, just as there are experts on concrete, stone and building conservation and so on, in our national institutions such the Superintendence for Cultural Heritage and the University of Malta.
Yet, when important decisions, that involve the cultural and social value of a building, a feature, a landscape or townscape, are to be taken, their views are often either not sought, or brushed aside. As a result, the attrition of Malta’s historic environment continues on a daily basis. n
An abbreviated version of this article appeared in the Times of Malta on 15 October 2020.
Footnotes: (1) Carmel Joseph Farrugia, Polluted Politics: Background to the Deportation of Maltese Nationals in 1942 (Malta, Midsea Books, 1995), p. 31; (2) Giovanni Bonello, ‘Early Cinemas in Malta’, in Histories of Malta: Confusions and Conclusions, vol. 12 (2012), p. 208; (3) Kindly made available for study by the Fondazzjoni Fortunato u Enrico Mizzi; (4) Charles Debono, ‘80th Anniversary of WWII (2): Malta steels itself for the gathering storm’, Times of Malta (8 Sept 2019); (5) Joe Tonna (ed.) Gioventù Cattolica (1995), p. 313; (6) Ibid. p. 26; (7) Ibid. p. 34; (8) Ibid. p. 83; (9) Ibid. p. 284.
