The Times of Malta, 23/11/03

By Jove!

The tale of Amphitryon and Alkmene has provided playwrights with an intriguing plot, farcical and salacious, since Plautus wo made the basic mythological plot funnier by having two sets of twins: two Amphitryons and two slaves, two Sosiases. Shakespeare did the same thing when he wrote his own version of Plautus' Menaechimi, calling it a comedy of errors, in which he too added a second set of twins.

Moliere wrote a very successful version for the 17th century Paris, and when early in the 19th century the young German playwright Heinrich von Kleist wrote his version he incorporated in it translations of entire scenes from Moliere.

Kleist's Amphitryon (Actinghouse Productions, St James Cavalier) retains much of the (not excessively) bawdy fun of the traditional plot, be he developed Alkamene's character much more than Moliere and focussed on a number of scene's on Alkamene's feelings towards her husband. Alkamene has been rightfully describes as a "potentially tragic character" and while Kliest does not make her tragic, he makes us aware of her psychological tumult.

She is the beautiful wife of Amphitryon, king of Thebes. During her husband's absence while he wages war on Athens. The perennially randy Chief of the Gods, Jupiter, takes the likeness of Amphitryon and spends a long night of love with her, while the god Mercury takes the likeness of Amphitryon's slave Sosias and holds the fort against unwelcome intrusions.

There are two main strands in the plot. The first shows Jupiter in his Amphitryon guise trying to persuade unsuccessfully Alkmene that she should think of that night's partner not as her husband but as a lover, a later, more successfully, to accept that she has been honoured by having received the Chief of the God's as her lover. This Jupiter, like the Christian God, wants not just to have his way but also to be loved. The second strand is about the comical humiliations endured by the real Amphitryon and the real Sosias at the hands of the fakes, and especially of the sadistic Sosias/Mercury.

The two strands come together when Jupiter, after having made Alkamene acknowledge his publicly as her beloved husband, reveals his identity in public to Amphitryon who, like many of us, immediately succumbs when faced with divinity to the extent of asking Jupiter to honour his with a semi-divine child. Jupiter obliges by telling him Alkmene is already pregnant with a child who will be the great Hercules. Amphitryon is delighted, but Alkmene?

In the German original Alkmene responds to Amphitryon's loving address with a syllable, "Ach!" which has been interpreted differently as an expression of joy, bewilderment, horror and despair. Frank Hoerner, who directs the present production, uses this ambiguity to end the play with a strong note of protest against gods and men who make women obey their dictates. Alkmene appears heavily pregnant behind a translucent screen and then, suddenly and tragicomically, bursts the foetus/balloon. She has aborted the foetus begotten by Jupiter and destroyed the god's grandiose plans, greatly supported by Amphitryon, for a demigod who will bewilder the world. She has prevented the birth of one of ancient Greek relegation's most famous myths!

It is almost certainly a much more radical ending than Kliest ever envisaged, but in today's world it works very well.

Hoerner, in fact, has given the play a contemporary setting in which Jupiter, though still described as a god, could also be, shall we say, the President of a Superpower who exults in his limitless power. Oddly enough, lines referring to Bush and Iraq and "the axis of evil" are placed not in Jupiter's but in Amphitryon's mouth when he comes back from his victory over the Athenians, but this is because Hoerner wishes to send up the ridiculous rulers of this world, as indeed he sends up all the characters with an exception of Alkmene, who alone wins our sympathy.

The direction tries hard to make the comical elements effective, and undoubtedly succeeds in the handling of the two Amphitryons, played by Mikhail Basmadjian as a comically arrogant Jupiter/Amphitryon who yearns so much to be loved, and Jes Cammileri s the true Amphitryon, a true lover but not terribly bright. The only problem is that Hoerner has not tried at all to indicate that the two are physically identical, and has even stressed their physical differences as he does in the case of the two Sosiases.

I think he does this to support the statement in his programme note that "a man that returns from war is not the one that left several years before". This makes sense, but theatrically it does not. The characters, as well as the audience, have to see instantly why all the confusions about identity are taking place. And identical half-mask for both twins could have done the trick.

Hoerner is very inventive about comic business. I greatly enjoyed the scene between the real Amphitryon and Alkmene in which the two are having the mother of all tiffs about Alkmene's night of love while waving and smirking at all the people of Thebes who are greeting their conquering hero. This is comedy of a high order.

Hoerner is much less successful when it comes to low comedy scenes, especially those between Sosias and Mercury/Sosias. He gives Anthony Ellul's Sosias gimmicks like constantly and always unsuccessfully trying on his martial arts skills and even occasionally speaking Maltese (why?) while Peter Galea's Mercury puts on a broad Maltese accent when he speaks as Sosias, but they are very rarely funny.

The Sosias scenes, which Kleist took over bodily from Moliere, were meant to be played in commedia dell'arte style by actors who are real comics. While Ellul is one of our finest actors, he is not a comic and never managed to get more than a smile from me when the audience should have been guffawing. Galea to suggest some of Mercury's cruelty, but he needs more technique to do the job efficiently.

Irene Christ achieves another success as Alkmene. Initially she is a delightful combination of honest and faithful wife and sex kitten. As the play develops the joie de vivre faced as she is with the identity of the man she really loves. She never plays for comic effect, so when she does strike a comic not it is purely because the character itself is convincingly funny.

Pia Zammit is miscast as Sosias' wife Charis. Charis is meant to be clearly a middle-ages or even elderly woman who harbours the illusion that she is still attractive to men, whereas this actress looked good and young enough to attract the surly Mercury rather than repel him. Even her fiery fits of anger with both Sosiases did not suffice to make her Kliest's Charis.

I suspect that the text could have done with a few cuts in the first part, but it may be that on the first night it lacked the pace which by this weekend it will almost certainly have acquired.

Zvezdan Reljic's set with its broad platforms is dominated by a large portrait of the real Amphitryon and a translucent screen at the gallery level, the effectiveness of which comes out right at the end with Alkmene's act of protest.

Paul Xuereb