The Great Dictator, adapted to Maltese theatre. Photo: Elisa von Brockdorff
I’ll say it right out – 2024 is really shaping up to be Jamie Cardona’s year, and The Great Dictator has only served to confirm my conviction that this actor is going to do great things for Maltese theatre.
If you’ll remember, I’ve literally just given Cardona a shiny, shiny review for Mid-Djarju Ta’ Student Fi Skola Tal-Knisja, which had a spectacular run of 40+ shows. Now, the actor has dived straight into The Great Dictator, another comedy based on the Charlie Chaplin classic that takes a very different approach to humor. And the results are excellent, not only thanks to Cardona but also thanks to remarkable direction and a cast and crew that puts its considerable collective talent to very good use.
The plot follows a Jewish barber from the fictional country of Tomainia. During the war, he saves the life of Commander Schultz, thus aiding a Tomainian victory, but winds up suffering from amnesia following a plane crash.
Fast forward 20 years and there’s another war on, with Toimainia under the dictatorship of Adenoid Hynkel, who persecutes Jews and bears an uncanny likeness to our Jewish barber. The barber recovers his memory after a chance encounter with Commander Schultz who, grateful for the saving of his life, swaps sides to support the residents of the persecuted Jewish ghetto. No prizes for guessing that this is a very thinly veiled satire of Hitler’s Nazi regime, referencing both The Great War and World War II.
The original script has been masterfully adapted from the film by Malcolm Galea, who also directs it. This comes as another fresh success for Galea, whose recent original scripts – like the award-winning The Trials of Magnus Coffinkey and The Heimlich Manouevre – have proven to be a strong addition to the Maltese oeuvres.
The Great Dictator: chillingly appropriate for the times
Onto The Great Dictator, which played to a well-deserved full house and a highly delighted audience when I was reviewing. The cast takes on multiple roles. Cardona, in the roles of both the dictator and the barber, is consistently hilarious.
I had already witnessed his talent in switching characters for Djarju, and this comes out even stronger here thanks to the marked contrast between the very camp and exaggerated movements of Adenoid Hynkel and the humble and soft spoken barber. The way he changes his facial expressions is so thorough it would be creepy in other circumstances.
Jeremy Grech aces his roles, easily alternating between the camp congeniality of Commander Schultz and the comically blind loyalty and pragmatism of Garbage, sorry Garbitsch (parodying Goebbels).
It was good to see Nicola Abela Garrett back on the Maltese stage. She delivered the laughs both as stern, but clueless, Storm Trooper and especially as the wife of rival dictator Benzino Napaloni (aka Mussolini, with a wordplay on both Benito and Napoleon). Her outbursts in pseudo Italian elicited loud guffaws.
Joe Depasquale and Peter Galea likewise breeze through their myriad roles. My personal favorites are Depasquale in the role of Napaloni, and as an artist trying to paint the Great Dictator’s portrait. Galea is particularly funny as Herring (parodying Goering) in the act of receiving more medals – which goes delightfully awry.
Hannah Spiteri takes on various roles, the most significant being the barber’s love interest (also called Hannah). Spiteri takes the ‘panto’ approach to the character, over enunciating lines and coming across as naive, rather than wholesome. This robs her important soliloquy of the depth it has in the original movie.
Chaplin is synonymous with slapstick, that seemingly mindless type of humor that softens the darker aspect of the narrative. Both as director and script writer, Galea faced a very ambitious task adapting these elements to the stage for The Great Dictator.
The overall production works beautifully. But in some parts, the physicality of the comedy would have been better aided with more comprehensive props, or even more detailed staging. The buffet dinner scene, and the part where Adenoid Hynkel ends up crawling towards the prisons after Benzino Napaloni passes out on him, are two examples.
The physical aspect shines in other areas of the play, especially with regard to movement under the direction of Moritz Zavan Stoeckle. Much of the play’s humour depends on smooth-choreography, and all the actors carry this through superbly.
The Great Dictator is produced by Nikolai Azzopardi. This is his first theatre production, certainly not an easy debut, but undoubtedly a successful one. This choice of play comes at a chillingly appropriate time, given the current rise of the far right. It is to be hoped that the lessons of the past aren’t forgotten, and any production that helps keep the memory of the atrocities alive deserves our attention.
Adding to the inherent importance of the piece, this is a masterful adaptation rich in comic entertainment. In short, The Great Dictator should not be missed by anyone with an interest in either theatre, politics, film or basic human rights.
Kudos to Azzopardi for taking the plunge and for clearly respecting the creative freedom of cast and crew. His production has attracted full houses across two weekends, which in my view makes him a superb addition to the local scene. I look forward to seeing what’s next from Nikolai Azzopardi Productions.
For more theatre reviews check Brad Birch’s Peer Gynt adaptation, which ran at the Spazju Kreattiv Theatre in Valletta, and Miti Miti, Teatru Malta’s latest children’s show.
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I received no payment for this review and I used complimentary press tickets. The opinions expressed here are purely my own and the production company had no input/control over what I wrote. To learn more about my policies and my reviewing process, visit my Affiliate/Advertising disclosure page.