Irene Christ has for the past few years become an integral part of Maltese theatre, blending mixed talents from the island and beyond in Actinghouse’s variety of performances. For years, the company has covered several genres but in Dea Loher’s ‘Tattoo’, sexual abuse in the family has brought a deeper and darker quality in Christ’s choice of performances.
As the play’s title suggests, ‘Tattoo’ deals with the aberration of sexual abuse, in this case the incest between father and daughter and the struggle of the young woman to free herself from her father’s domination. The ominous feeling of hopelessness pervades the play even in its lightest moments, blotting out the faint light of happiness the daughter can ever have.
Although seemingly different from Actinghouse’s varied repertoire of themes and performances often revelling in their black humour, Christ, for whom ‘Tattoo’ is her directorial debut, says the play is not much different from Actinghouse’s other productions.
“A Streetcar Named Desiree (Tennessee Williams) and Who Is Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Edward Albee), were both plays which also focus on the psychological aspect of relationships, even if in a different way. ‘Tattoo’ is in line with introducing German playwrights to a Maltese audience, as we di d with Bertolt Brecht, Heinrich von Kleist, and our evening about Marlene Dietrich,” Christ, a German national herself, says.
For the past few years now living in Malta, Christ says the numerous stories about sexual abuse within families, but also within institutions, schools and the Church, have found their way into the media, a bleak landscape of public prosecutions and courtroom reportage that seems to be the backdrop to ‘Tattoo’. “The theatre has the great chance to give such stories an individual face, to show characters and make the audience be getting involved into a story rather than just reporting it,” she says.
“Actually I struggle a bit to use the word ‘incest’, although technically it is correct as the sexual act happens between family members. But the word also includes for example brother and sister being attracted to each other without any force from one side. In this case it is clearly abuse if not rape from the side of the father who violently and possessively domineers his daughter(s).”
In the play, Christ details a family in which – as explained by psychologist Mary Ann Borg Cunen who will be leading a discussion after the performance on Saturday – the abuse often goes down the line. The father first abuses his elder daughter Anita and later, when she leaves home, the younger daughter Lulu.
“At the beginning the younger daughter senses that something is wrong about her sister and father, but she can’t exactly tell what and she is jealous as she feels her sister gets all the attention. She feels left out and tries to provoke, and to raise attention through cutting herself and claiming that she has lots of lovers and takes money from them. In the end she becomes her father’s victim as well and seeks for help from her elder sister.
“Anita, the elder daughter, suffers silently for a long time. She tries to function in daily life, and despite the abuse she has a great sense of responsibility towards her mother and her sister. We hear about her feelings especially in the night scenes, when she is alone and all the fear and hatred of her situation comes out.
“The mother is very submissive. She even encourages the daughter to accept the abuse. In our version she is quite obsessed with cleaning, as if that could remove the guilt she feels about being too weak to protect her children from her husband. She scratches herself all the time ‘because she has something against herself’ as her younger daughter analyses. The silent acceptance of abuse from family members is unfortunately typical part of the structure.”
Towards the end of the play, the father’s damage to his daughters manifests itself clearly in Anita, who has to carry the traumatic burden all her life unless she finds a way out through help from the outside. “The boy she falls in love with shows a certain possessiveness as well, like her father, although at the beginning he does try to understand and accept her as she is. We brought in the idea of Anita starting to use drugs, hoping to find relief, which, of course always works against the victims and increases the problems.
“Psychologist Mary Ann Borg Cunen has been of great help to explain certain structures of abuse and stressed that abuse is being found in all kinds of families, no matter what social status in society. We spoke about the psychological consequences of abuse, of power structures within families and about the way abuse creates abuse.”
Dea Loher wrote the play after an authentic case where a young woman shot her father after he was released from prison. He had raped her for several years when she was a child and she was scared the terror might continue once he is out. Loher varies the story, but shows how abuse often recreates abuse in the next generation. “Her story doesn’t only show the neurotic relationships of all the family members but also shows the abused daughter’s inability to engage into a ‘healthy’ relationship with a boyfriend afterwards. From our research we found out that often people after abusive situations go through phases of low self-esteem, depression, sudden mood changes, aggression, self-destructive behaviour and find it hard to deal with someone who actually loves them.”
Mike Quinton gave the play its score, with a waltz for the table scenes, a violin track for the scenes with the mother, which ends up being very dissonant; Anita’s night-scenes blighted by the cacophony of voices, breathing, screams, expression of fear; and the ironical interspersion of Clayderman in the scenes with the boyfriend, which hardly display true harmony.
Looking at the play from the other side of the stage may have not been new to Christ, although this was the first complete play she directed. “I have been wanting to direct for a number of years, but somehow always ended up on stage. I often jumped on stage during rehearsals anyway, ask the actors… they made fun of me sometimes. That way I got to play all five roles, no matter what age or gender!
“There is great talent in Malta and I am happy I found all actors involved in ‘Tattoo’. I enjoyed especially the fact that I didn’t have to go on stage for the second performance, still hungover from premiere night. The plan is to continue on both acting and directing.
“I’ll start a new drama course on behalf of Actinghouse in October – I ‘discovered’ Sarah Suda, the actress who plays the younger sister, in one of my classes. Then I will act for the first time for theatre company Unifaun in Malta, in the play ‘Mercury Fur’. In spring I will direct again and in late summer, Tobias Lehmann, a German actor and director, will come over and direct a play, getting back to the black humour we love.”

‘Tattoo’ is playing at St James Cavalier on Friday 21, Saturday 22, and Sunday 23 September, at 8pm. Tickets: 2122 3200 or boxoffice@sjcav.org. Cast: Maria Buckle, Sarah Suda, Stefan Cachia Zammit, Simone Ellul and Nick Bonanno.