Paul Capsis & Julian Meyrick: Angela's Kitchen

EU2017MT Programme

‘At the end, he shares his most precious memories with the audience, many of whom were holding back tears. Deeply affecting theatre.’ Sun Herald

Told simply and truthfully, Angela’s Kitchen by Griffin Theatre Company, is an astonishingly evocative piece of autobiographical theatre. Angela’s Kitchen is a play about Paul Capsis’s connection with his maternal grandmother Angela and her island home of Malta. A journey that begins at a kitchen table becomes a portrait, not just of a much-loved matriarch, but of a whole generation. In 1948, Angela left Malta. Having gathered up her five children, she sailed out on the Strathnavar, leaving poverty and the war behind. Her destination: Australia.

The experience of a migrant’s flight from trauma to safety is a universal one – as is the resulting displacement and the fractured family narratives that are left in its wake. Capsis seamlessly and often hilariously brings to life the extraordinary characters of his family. Angela’s story provides a window into an ordinary life, but an ordinary life made of epic stuff – war, death, courage and endurance. Angela’s Kitchen makes its audience ask how much we know about where we came from and what makes us who we are today.