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Drowned Lilies

Rating Guide
None = Unmissable
= Unwatchable

Rating
Venue Pend at Gateway (Venue 7).
Address Elm Row.
Reviewer Thelma Good.

What would it be like to be a Siamese twin? This play written and directed by Simon Bartolo was developed with Aeateia Theatre , Maltese Theatre Company whose work certainly deserves to be seen beyond its shores. Loranne Vella chills as La Signora Fogli the mother and manipulator of her daughters, Lily and (Lelia), difficult roles well played by Sephora Gauci and Dorothy Baldacchino. She shows her offspring off to brittle members of society including Mr Jay, Miss Pume, Mr Ironwood and Miss Steppendolf. When poet Edmund Zanter arrives he sees not two freaks but one entrancing creature. Lily/(Lelia) are/is also attracted and as they talk and interact you realise that the identity of Lily is "more than one, less than two".

The story of their lives is told with theatrical economy, using music and song as well as the marvelous mannered visitors who go with them to America . There they are even more confined though Zanter visits them his fascination with their conjoinedness is no longer shared by the twins. Acted and directed with precision and visual eye this introduces a theatre company well able to present work on the international stage. I hope they return soon, it's work well worth seeing.