But the pair also portrayed themselves: two Maltese women grappling with conflicted feelings about home. They walk a fine line between appreciation and anger—creating an ode to Malta’s warmth and history, but also a critique of its iron-fisted abortion laws.

“When you say you love your country, What is it that you love?” Davinia asked during the interview.

“Is it a flag? Is it some abstract concept that you can’t pin down? Because if that’s the case, then you’re not really loving anything at all.”

“When I say I love my country, what I mean is I love the people of my country, because those are the tangible things in my country. I know there are one in three women who have abortions – this is according to global statistics and we have no reason to believe that Malta is any different so there are one in three women who are being let down.”

“How can I say that I love my country if I’m okay that these people who are my country are being put in positions of suffering, pain and isolation?”

The play was initially inspired by the first pro-choice protest held in Malta in 2019. It was researched and written during the COVID lockdown periods and had two successful runs in the subsequent couple of years: one in London and another at the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Both runs were met with high praise, and this gave them the confidence they needed to face a Maltese audience that ran the risk of being hypercritical.

In fact, news of the show debuting overseas sparked controversy on the island, with the pro-choice movement taking to their keyboards to censure Marta and Davinia for even thinking of embarking on such a project.

Following the update to Malta’s abortion law – a regressive one at that – Marta and Davinia agreed it was time to bring the play to Malta, adding a poignant perspective to a conversation that had never been so loud.

“We were 100 times more nervous to perform this in Malta than we were in the UK,” Marta admitted. “The stakes felt much higher for us and it’s not just because of what the topic is about, but it’s also because we speak a lot about our country and the love for our country – we put ourselves on the show as characters. So, we really put our very own necks on the line.”

Raw conversations followed each production day. Whether it was an informal thank you from an audience member or one of the organised Q&A’s held at Spazju Kreattiv – Blanket Ban went beyond igniting the conversation by partaking in it and creating the space for it too.

“I will say that there was one encounter that really moved me in a way I don’t think any other has,” Marta emphasised. “This woman after the show very quietly took me to one side and she said she’s spent the last 20 years feeling like a criminal and tonight was the first night I realised that what I did was normal and that other people do it too.”

The post-show reactions in both Malta and the UK were mixed but all were vulnerable: some people were infuriated, others were somber and many expressed relief.

What shocked both creators was the ease at which audience members shared their stories. The Q&A sessions became more of a space to share rather than ask and that really showed the thirst that people have to speak up and feel less alone.

There was one woman, Marta recalled, who spoke up about not having an abortion. During the pregnancy, she discovered that she would be forced to carry the pregnancy until she either miscarried or came to term, and she miscarried at five months.

“It’s torture. Seeing this belly grow, having people congratulate her but knowing very well that it was only going to be a matter of time and she couldn’t do anything about it,” Marta said.

After having interviewed multiple women for this play, Davinia and Marta were somewhat used to hearing these stories.

However, this process wasn’t easy. The writers heard a variety of experiences from people at different stages of healing. For some women, Davinia and Marta became the only people to know about their abortions.

“Sometimes stuff that we heard was so incredulous that we had to share notes,” Marta said, recounting one of the most shocking stories they heard and which featured in the play.

“A woman who met a guy online and she liked him. She already had a son and they were dating and he used to tell her that he thinks she’d be such a good mother. He used to ask if he could see photos of her pregnant and he’d say thins like “I would love to have another child.” He already had couple of children, right, with different women.

“She was very clear that she had one child and didn’t want another and he ghosted her. So she thought okay then that’s it,” she continued.

“But, she then gets a phone call from Kordin and it’s this same guy in jail and it turns out that he had a case pending from years before. On this call, he asked her if she was pregnant. To which she replied, ‘No, what are you talking about?'”

Sure enough, she did a pregnancy test and it came out positive. She discovered that he was either removing the condom midway, pricking the condom, or ejaculating inside of her and lying about it.

“This was clearly a very sick individual who had some sort of fetish. He had a plan.”

The play goes through a number of stories similarly shocking to this, using art as a means to push this conversation further and make silent voices heard.

Davinia and Marta are now thinking of their next steps to spread the word even further. They’ve discussed adapting the play in Maltese and even filming it so people can access it in the privacy of their own homes.

Did you watch Blanket Ban?