Strait Street

Altofest MALTA, Valletta2018

Based on the  “Strait Street” - Secret Stories behind closed doors” by George Cini.


Things are in constant movement. So it happens that when you go back to a place, you won't find it the same way as when you left it. Even if it looks as if nothing happened, behind the window of a house which seems to have been there since the beginning of time, a baby might have been born. And under the tree, which has grown slightly taller, the golden ring which was placed at the bottom of the trunk by two lovers has disappeared, the reason: a mystery.

If you go to Strait Street in Valletta, a whole culture was displaced and only some hints remain painted on the walls above the entrances of the doors and others in the minds of eldelry people.
During the British colonial period, the Street was a vibrant hub where sailors lived their free time enjoying drinks, listening and dancing to wonderful jazz music and falling in love with drag queens and exotic women. The street was known around the world for its secrets and many who carry them are now no longer on this earth.

It is exaclty these memories which give life to the stories we decided to take inspiration from, reading the interviews made by George Cini to the inhabitants of the street and published in his books. By placing hidden actors inside the coloured balconies, we tell these stories into wireless headphones to people passing by. The displacement of a lost culture becomes a world into which we plunge into, going back in time for a brief moment and living it in a parallel universe.
A broken mirror still holds the secret answer of a beautiful drag queen to a marriage proposal of a sailor, a piano plays the melody of a small kid who dreamed of becoming a great jazz musician and a walled door hides the voice of a prostitute murdered while others were dancing and forgetting the horrors of the war.

Things are in constant movement, people come and go, hearts are broken and cement is layered on top of stones. It is through the pain of displacement that life continues and if we hold on to the traces this life leaves behind, we will know better who we are and why it is worth living this short period of eternally changing time.

Director: Alan Alpenfelt
Writer: George Cini
Actors and stories by: 
Angele Galea, Diandra Anne, Bernard Satariano
Dramaturg: Adele Raes

Sustained by ProHelvetia
Performed at
Valletta2018, Malta
13 April 2018 - opening of AltoFest
13 - 15 May 2018