All the world’s a stage,
William Shakespeare
And all the men and women merely players
The suffocating heat of a Maltese summer day was drawing to a close. As I stepped out of the car, the last traces of air-conditioning on my skin were instantly smothered by a blanket of humidity. Beads of sweat formed on my brow and quickly swelled into salty streams, running down my face. Surrounded by other guests, who seemed less affected, I walked through the gate into the oasis of San Anton Gardens.
A burst of green in the centre of Attard, this lush suburban sanctuary stood in stark contrast to the Maltese landscape, steadily being burnt brown by the relentless summer sun and parched from countless dry days. The heat wasn’t extreme by Australian standards, but the constant thirty-degree days, without even a breeze for relief, made it oppressive.
The palace buildings peeked out from beneath the garden’s canopy. Palms and jacarandas shaded the stone paths, their dark trunks a dramatic contrast to the golden limestone walls enclosing the palace grounds, glowing in the soft evening light. We stepped onto the grounds, once acquired in 1600 by Antoine de Paule, a knight of the Order of St John.
A drinks station, nestled beneath the trees came into view. With a bright yellow can of cold Cisk in one hand and a chilled glass of Marsovin white wine in the other, we were welcomed to the evening’s performance of Shakespeare underneath the stars.
The cooling drinks offered a brief reprieve and a moment to reflect. While workmen were once digging into this very limestone ground to build a villa for de Paule, across the sea, William Shakespeare was in Stratford-upon-Avon putting the final touches to his play, As You Like It.
Four hundred years after As You Like It premiered in England, we sat in the gardens of Malta’s presidential residence, captivated by a local Maltese drama troupe performing those very words, under a canopy of stars.
As night fell and we joined a hundred others seated around the stage, the actors declared:
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.”
And in that moment, surrounded by fellow travellers, we played our part. We were transported back in time to Shakespeare’s world, even as the richness of Malta’s own story unfolded around us. The island shaped by centuries of Mediterranean influence; its landscape, architecture, language and culture all woven together. And here, local Maltese artists gave life, once more, to the Bard’s words, four centuries after he first penned them.
This article first appeared in the Malta Journal – Connecting the Maltese Diaspora
