Ħassle Mejjet Man! These Young Creatives Are Putting On A Show You Won’t Want To Miss
Original works of writing and theatre performances seem to be popping up all over the place these days. From the publication of two of Simone Spiteri‘s most successful scripts to a creepy new project by the iconic Trevor Zahra, we’re truly blessed in the theatre scene at the moment.
But it’s not just the seasoned professionals who are blessing us with new work. Some of Malta’s younger creatives are stepping up to the plate and bringing the workings of their imagination to life.
Ħassle Mejjet Theatre Collective are gearing up for their first large scale production: ‘Pandora‘.
And we have all the details ahead of the show’s debut on the 18th of October. Ħassle Mejjet (ĦM) is a new theatre collective made up of four young theatre practitioners and students between the ages of 19 and 21.
Their first production was a series of original monologues strung together under the title ‘An Ode To Teen Angst’ – which we truly appreciate, since we’re kind of still angsty teens in our hearts. Following up on that ‘teen angst’ theme, ‘Pandora’ will follow a group of Maltese teenagers as they struggle to find themselves in today’s busy world.
https://www.facebook.com/hasslemejjet/videos/2523932861227075/
The story follows Pandora, a teenager who finds herself thrown into a whole new world when she begins hanging out with a new group of friends. Along a journey of self-acceptance and loss of innocence, Pandora has to come to terms with a secret that she’s been hiding for a while.
What is that secret? Well, you’ll just have to watch the show and find out for yourself. Because they won’t tell us.
Photo: Mattia Scicluna
Getting Pandora from page to stage has been no walk in the park.
Being a group made solely of young practitioners, the ĦM crew often felt “a need to prove themselves to the industry”, to show that despite still being new to the world of original theatre, they could pull it off.
New work is definitely not lacking here in Malta, so competition is tough. But ĦM doesn’t see this as a bad thing, rather “an incentive to keep working hard and never fall behind”. Working with a cast and crew of fellow young creatives, ĦM has been working hard to bring the show together.
With an original script by Benjamin Abela, directed by Brendan Thearle and devised along with the cast, Pandora is sure to be a story that anybody who is, or once was, a teenager will be able to relate to.
“Most of the times, inspiration for such characters stemmed from people I’ve actually met – oftentimes picking and choosing relevant characteristics from friends, family, or even fictional characters, and mashing them all up to create one, fully-developed persona.”
-Ben Abela
Inspired by characters and experiences from their own lives, Pandora aims to pull at some nostalgia-strings.
And this is pretty heavily reflected in their advertising, too. With elements of freedom and youth “underlined by a sense of impending doom”, the story looks to be a dark-yet-relatable take on adolescence and growing up in Malta.
Pandora will be on at the Manoel Theatre Studio from the 18th to the 2oth of October.
You can get your tickets here. The production is being supported by APS bank. And if you’re feeling generous, donate to Ħassle Mejjet’s Zaar crowdfunding page to help them pull this off. Plus, you get t-shirts and tote bags as a reward so that’s pretty cool.
Once Pandora is over, the ĦM crew will be taking some time to “to take a step back and find [their] place and create new contacts in the vibrant world of theatre before staging another piece”. And we can only imagine what their brains will come up with next.
