Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1546363
LAURA CALLEJA lcalleja@mediatoday.com.mt 2 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 30 AUGUST 2026 THEATRE SIMONE Spiteri's new play play Ħobżna ta' Kuljum revisits Mal- ta's 1977 bread strike through one family's struggle with sur- vival, womanhood and the search for independence. When Spiteri first came across Malta's 1977 break strike, her reaction was one of surprise. "I knew absolutely nothing about it," she tells MaltaToday. "Or that it had even happened." Spiteri who wrote the play, but is also directing, was born in 1983 and had grown up aware that Malta's 70s were marked by strikes and complicated political situations, but the bread strike itself had escaped her knowl- edge. It was only after coming across a BBC podcast about the strike that she began to dig dip- per into the event. The result is Ħobżna ta' Kul- jum, a new play by Dù Theatre. The production will run at Val- letta Campus Theatre from 18 to 27 September, with English subtitles on 19 and 27 Septem- ber. Spiteri is less interested in rec- reating history than in examin- ing what happens when history enters the home. At the centre of the play is Ri- ta, a young women caught be- tween the future her parents have imagined for her and the future she wants for herself. Around her, the Gauci family is forced to navigate a period of hardship and uncertainty as one of the most basic necessities of everyday life becomes suddenly scarce. Spiteri says the bread strike of- fered more than a historical set- ting. It provided a way of exam- ining Malta at a moment when the country was still trying to define itself. "Malta as an independent country was in its infancy try- ing to figure itself out," she says, while the rest of the world was undergoing significant changes, particularly in relation to social and gender norms. Writing the play in 2026, al- most 50 years after the events it depicts, also gave Spiteri a par- ticular vantage point. "I felt that writing and directing it in 2026, being almost exactly 50 years later, was a good obser- vational point for me to explore what has… but more important- ly hasn't changed since." A generation caught between two worlds Rita's story is rooted in the ex- periences of women growing up in the 1970s in Malta, but Spiteri says the questions confronting her character are not confined to one generation. During the development of the play, the Dù team spoke to wom- en who had been young adults or adults during the 1970s. Now in their seventies and eighties, these women described a society undergoing profound change. What struck Spiteri most was the sense that they were stand- ing on what she describes as a "shaking tectonic plate". "It was a time of change during which I think women felt torn between two worlds," she says. On one side there was pre- scribed roles, and the expecta- tions of a familiar world, and on the other was a new way of im- aging what womanhood could be. This tension, Spiteri says re- mains familiar. "We, and I mean all the team and readers of the play who are now adults in 2026, felt that that sentiment is a familiar one to us now too." When bread becomes more than bread The historical bread strike could easily have become the dominant subject of the play, but instead Spiteri uses it as a pressure point for the family. History, she says, is often re- counted through dates, names and facts. What can disappear in the process are the consequenc- es those events have on ordinary people. "I wanted to explore what the effects of the lack of bread were through the eyes of a family unit, the type of which we all know or have or still form part of." Spiteri says the Gauci family should feel recognisable. They struggle, react and clash with each other in a way audiences will either see themselves in or recognise from families they have seen. That familiarity, Spiteri says, is critical. "Bread becomes a sym- bol for what happens when the thing we take for granted is not available anymore and how our perception of its value changes in its absence." Spiteri wants audiences to con- sider the invisible physical and emotional labour that women have historically been expected to perform, as well as the rigid roles imposed on both men and women. Writing and directing the story Spiteri has taken on both writ- ing and directing duties for Ħobżna ta' Kuljum, something she doesn't do often. As a free- lance artist, she says most of the time she's writing for other people, but only rarely does she have the chance to create a play entirely for herself. "When it does happen, I direct it because I would have a very clear idea not just of how I want it to be written but also staged." Spiteri describes the rehearsal room as an open environment in which the play remains de- liberately unsettled until open- ing night. The process involves constant discussion, debate and experimentation. Once the script reached actors Daniela Carabott Pawley, Mary Rose Mallia and Lino Mintoff, the characters became theirs as much as they remained Spiteri's. "We kept fine-tuning together during and sometimes outside of rehearsals," she says. The same collaborative ap- proach extends to the rest of the eight-member cast and the wider creative team. "I enjoy this part of the process a lot," she says. What does Hobzna ta' Kuljum mean today? For Spiteri, the final interpre- tation does not belong entirely to her. After more than two dec- ades working in theatre, she has learned that audiences will inev- itably find meanings in a work that its creator could never have anticipated. "I can commit to imbuing it with my deepest, rawest thoughts but then each audience member will connect with what- ever resonates with them." So, she does not want to pre- scribe a single lesson for audi- ences watching Ħobżna ta' Kul- jum. Instead, she hopes they will ap- proach the Gauci family with an open mind and an open heart, and allow the story to speak to them in whatever way they are ready to receive it. "I just hope that audiences en- gage with our characters with an open heart and mind and let the play whisper to them whatever they are open to receive." Ħobżna ta' Kuljum: Survival, womanhood and the search for independence