The blight beneath new leaves
I can happily say that the old ŻiguŻajg Children’s Arts Festival that we all know and remember is finally back. And it’s back with as many new and creative tricks up its sleeve as it can muster to make up for the beating the local arts scene has sustained in the pandemic of two weight and two measures. And in the vein of living through a science fiction story arc over the past two years, Maltese, London-based writer and director Vikesh Godhwani has come up with a dystopia set 22 years into our future, aptly titled 2044.
In a fast-paced show with a strong indictment of the repression of personal freedom masked as a means of environmental preservation, 2044 introduces tough concepts to a young audience.
The regime of New Leaf is a new order society that closed itself off from progress and the outside world, in order to re-educate its citizens and turn them into easily manipulatable drones. Fifteen-year-old Sophie (Tina Rizzo) goes off to Joy School the day following her birthday, only to be called to her headteacher’s office because her mother Adelaide (Isabel Warrington) has mysteriously vanished.
A scene from ‘2044’, written and directed by Vikesh Godhwani.
Mrs Blythe, the...